Legacy
Legacy
Please note: this post is 127 months old and The Cares Family is no longer operational. This post is shared for information only
Brilliant NLC volunteer Fabienne has been visiting her older neighbour Ann for almost a year now. Read about the development of their friendship, what it means to them both, and what plans they have for the future...
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It was through my job in the marketing department at the London Symphony Orchestra that I stumbled upon a fledgling charity, North London Cares. They were looking for activities for their members, we were looking for audiences for our free lunchtime concert series, aimed specifically at first-timers from the local community. It was a happy union, and the LSO has been glad to welcome NLC groups to many performances ever since.
Alex, NLC founder, and I soon became friends. We were driven by the same sense of wanting better for those who, for whatever reason, had found themselves isolated, vulnerable or without direction: in a word, unhappy. Alex asked if I’d be keen to help outside of work, and join NLC’s ‘Love Your Neighbour’ scheme. I said yes without hesitation and was matched with Ann, a 67 year-old woman who lived five minutes from my office.
We met on a sunny day in July last year, accompanied by Sarah, another member of NLC staff. Ann’s flat was more pleasant than I’d anticipated – I’d never had cause to enter sheltered housing before. Photos of grandchildren lined surfaces and behind a shimmering beaded curtain I caught a glimpse of a bedroom decked with brightly coloured cushions. A beautiful young tabby cat shot into a corner, clearly wary of strangers. When Ann realised that I’d been brought to her as part of a befriending programme, she cried and grasped my hand. This was the beginning of my understanding of how pain can bottle up inside a person; sometimes all it takes is one small act of kindness from a stranger to begin a healing process.
Sarah accompanied Ann and me on the first couple of visits, to ensure we were comfortable around one another before going solo. She and Alex were always available at the end of the phone if there were things I wanted to check, or was worried about – is it ok to buy her lunch from time to time? Should I ask her about her past or leave well alone? Is there a chance she could become dependent on me?
Over the course of the next few months, Ann and I settled into a pattern – I would call her a few times a week, and we’d catch up in person once a fortnight. We generally met up in her flat. At first, I was doing this in my lunch-hour, but as I got to know Ann better, I wanted to spend more than 45 minutes with her, in a context that wasn’t rushed. We’ve now switched to weekdays after I leave the office – no one is clock-watching, and we can both relax more fully (and all the best soaps are on around that time).
There have been some undeniably difficult times during the course of our 10-month relationship. Ann is naturally shy (though very bubbly once you get to know her) and when we first met, her world was very small. She wasn’t socialising or seeing her family. She didn’t have a job or any hobbies. Unsurprisingly, conversation sometimes became one-way – I often felt I was blabbing on about myself. Was this really helping her? When we did put the focus back on her, we often strayed towards the root of her sadness: loneliness, health problems, aimlessness, feeling cut-off and left behind in a fast-changing 21st century London. The dark nights didn’t help. Everyone gets the winter blues when light begins to fade at 4pm, but for many older people living alone, it amplifies their isolation and fear, sucking away the desire, and ability, to get out and about.
We had a lot of good times too. I saw immediately that Ann wasn’t ‘an old person’. She was my Mum’s age, and looked and acted still younger. She loved lively clothes – funky leggings, furry jackets, ornate handbags – and had a great sense of humour. I was struck by her grace in the face of a turbulent past: time and time again, she displayed a philosophical attitude to suffering. I too suffered from depression in my mid-twenties. Those of you in the same boat will know that it’s never something you beat, you just get more skilful at working around it. On more than one occasion I’ve confessed things to Ann that I haven’t told my closest girlfriends. I can be vulnerable with her in a way I can’t be at work, socially or even with my family.
As time progressed, we started to venture out – to the nearby café and the park. On one occasion I took her to the cinema to see the latest Simon Pegg movie. Another time she showed me her favourite car-boot sale off Holloway Road. One memorable winter day, my flatmate and I hired a van to move a freezer unit from Ann’s flat to her daughter’s home a few miles away. Ann had bought it for her months ago, but had no way of delivering it, so there it had sat, unused. When we turned up, Ann’s 18-year-old granddaughter spontaneously hugged us tightly. It was only a freezer, but they really did need it.
Another eye-opening moment came when I phoned Ann for our regular chat, only to find her in tears. Her daughter had been taken away in an ambulance the night before, but she didn’t know where to. No-one in the family had any credit on their mobile phones to start ringing round local hospitals. It took me 15 minutes to put a few calls in, find out where she was, and pass on the necessary information. Something to which most of us give zero thought was somebody else’s gold dust. I was just glad to have been of use.
In the last few months, Ann and I have started to attend NLC events, like Film Club, together. Maybe it’s the warmer weather, or the fact that she’s recently become a volunteer in a community centre herself, but there seems to be more sparkle than ever in her brown eyes. I still go round her flat for a cup of tea (the cat still hides from me) but now we always get our diaries out to plan at least one social event a month. We’re headed to a storytelling session soon and I’ve finally managed to convince her to give classical music a go and join a NLC group at the LSO’s next lunchtime concert.
I am just one part of a jigsaw puzzle for Ann. She is lucky to have a GP who goes above and beyond her remit, key workers at the various community centres and day hospitals she attends, and of course children and grandchildren who we are working on her seeing more regularly. Daily routine and structure, having events to look forward to, eating well and keeping active – these are all things that contribute to a happy life: basic but vital. Ann knows this, and it is a delight to see her increasingly take responsibility for her own wellbeing.
Ann and I will always be friends, but it is when she turns around and says that she no longer needs me that I will know I’ve done my job.
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