Eleanor's Letter: a bittersweet day of love and loss; plus ski-ing with Noon and my 80-year-old mum

How do you mark those sad-anniversaries in your calendar? I have two today

On the Noon Ski Trip last week with my mum (left) who is 80, below the James Bond restaurant above Murren, Switzerland, where downhill ski-ing in Europe was invented

Dear Queenagers

Happy Sunday – hope you have all had a good week. I’m glad to report that we all returned from Grindelwald in one piece after the Noon Ski Trip; not a given! I was so proud of all the women who came – some had ski-ed before, some were beginners, some were giving it a whirl after an accident or bad experience. But what we all found was that sliding down snow, surrounded by the beauty of the Jungfrau, under the North Face of the Eiger, was good for body and mind.

 In terms of mindfulness there is no way you can think about anything else while trying hard to keep all forces in balance – slippery snow, wooden skis, momentum and gravity hurling the body down hill. A lapse in concentration can prove disastrous, which is part of the fun – the whole of the rest of the world and anything else in our minds has to take second place to the NOWness of sliding fast down steep slopes. It’s a great escape from all our other worries!

The Queenagers who were beginners all said how much they loved the sensation – they’d got the bug! On the last morning four of us ski-ed right up to the very last moment, relishing the sun, the snow and the glorious mountains.

The resort where we stayed is where downhill ski-ing first began in the alps. Pioneered by British methodist missionaries, led by Arnold Lunn (who went on to found Lunn Poly the travel agents). Arnold was born in Madras and loved the alps. High up on the roof of Europe, surrounded by peaks, craggy and soaring in their magnificence he said he felt closer to god. Now I am not religious but up at the top of the James Bond restaurant, the one in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service where 007 skis off the roof (no I didn’t ski the top black run it is 75% steep!) looking out over the alps stretching away to infinity, blue lakes below I felt moved to tears by the sheer beauty. That is my sense of the divine.

On the viewing platform at the James Bond restaurant - three cable cars up - the alps spread out behind us

I was particularly happy last week to have my mum join me on the Noon trip – she is 80 and still skis elegantly and effectively. (That pic at the top is us on the run below the James Bond peak above Murren.) When I was a kid she would carry my skis, chivvy us on to lifts. Now the situation is reversed, I am her ski Wallah, carrying the kit, doing up her boots, picking her up on the rare occasions she falls, pulling her up hills when she runs out of puff, keeping her stoked with Gluwein. On one afternoon we came down in a gondola with a young woman and her four year old daughter. It made me think about life’s cycles, how we care for our children and hopefully in their turn the care for us. My mum is a strongly independent and proud woman, she never asks for help; it was an honour to be able to aid her to ski at 80; a sport she loves.

It made me think about what keeps us going, what makes some 80 year olds able to whizz down the Laberhorn  (not the whole lot but we did do part of the famous downhill run over into Wengen, me skiing behind my mum singing the Ski Sunday theme tune…) while some Octogenarians can’t get out of a chair.

Gail and Jackie, two amazing Queenagers, on top of the Jungfrau (and yes, I covet Gail’s green ski jacket!)

Looking at the active oldies I know, still going strong into the fourth quarter of their 100 Year Lives, I’d say what marks them out is just keeping on, keeping on. Whether that’s starting every day with a brisk walk, still playing tennis, or gardening or doing yoga… I saw a wonderful video on social media the other day of a 96 year old grooving alongside 20 somethings, cutting some serious shapes. My aunt who is 85 does 50 squats everyday to keep her legs strong (she’s seen too many of her friends fall over in the kind of coup de vieux which heralds inactivity). My granny (who ski-ed where we were in Switzerland last week in the 1920s, walking up hill in the morning on skins, having a picnic and then skiing down) could still dig her garden and stand on her head in her nineties. Of course some of it is luck. My other aunt was fit as a flea, played tennis and ate healthily and dropped dead of a stroke before she hit 70. So it’s not just staying fit and healthy. It may also be an attitude of mind; my mum is just determined she is going to ski, even if that involves popping pink neurofen pills and risking a fall. She reckons she owes death a living – a phrase of my stepfather’s, whose birthday it would have been today.

It's funny those days in the year that come with the baggage of the dead. At a recent Noon Circle one Queenager admitted tearfully that it was exactly six years to the day that her husband had died ( was so pleased and proud she had decided to spend it with us). A discussion arose around what to do with those sad-anniversaries. How they creep up on us, need containing with love and support and rituals.

Today is one of those days for me. The day I remember Peter my step father who is responsible for my love of the mountains, he generously took us all to the French alps whenever he could. But it is also the day that my best friend died when we were both 17. Mat was diabetic and he went to sleep and never woke up. He was like another brother, the son of my mum’s best friend. We grew up together, born only a couple of months apart; put to sleep in the same cot, fed the same mush. We were close as teens, I thought we would go to university together. And then he died before we could get there.  I couldn’t believe it, still can’t. Still feel a horrible hole where he should be which expands rather than shrinks with time. All those things he was never a part of, weddings, my children being born. It is over thirty five years since he died but I still miss him. Particularly today. We heard he had died on my step father’s birthday. And now both are dead. So today, February 11^th is a sad day for me, of remembering.

None of us get to midlife unscathed – over half of us have experienced at least five of death, divorce, bereavement, redundancy, abuse, illness, caring for elderly parents etc. But perhaps the silver lining is that the more that we shed the happier we end up. One of the key findings of the research we did was that the more Queenagers had been through, the happier they became in midlife. They were living that old truism that in the space that loss leaves, something new can grow. That is all very well but it doesn’t assuage the pain of the loss, particularly on those anniversary days -birthdays, death days, wedding anniversaries.. the moments when we miss them most. Where the lost feels most real and raw even decades later. But what I saw on the ski trip last week and in so many of our circles is women moving on, even as they grieve. Choosing life, and fun and a new tribe and new activities. Not living in the past but going forward, even with their pain.

I was intending to write an upbeat letter – all about how when we try something new at this point in our lives it fires up new brain pathways. That the muscle memory and the triumph of conquering a new physical skill ignites a broader possibility of other newness… that it creates a kind of map of possibility towards manifesting other innovations in our lives. After all if we can learn to ski in our fifth decade – chapeau Trish, Kitty and Fleur – then what else could we also do that we haven’t done before?

And if we can keep skiing in our 80s, albeit with help and support, (my mum sweetly texted me thanks, that she couldn’t do it on her own anymore) then what else can we keep doing? So much! Whether that’s brain work, or monetary work, or activity. It just requires asking for help and accepting it, and a positive mindset.

So congratulations and thanks to all of you lovely ladies who came skiing; and huge gratitude for the beautiful flowers you sent me saying you had all had a wonderful time ( I did too!). These Noon trips are so rich and happy, so full of love and laughter and mutual support and fun. They really do embody everything we are trying to build at Noon and with this community. I hope to see lots more of you at our Noon events in the future, whether that’s a retreat or a walk, a swim or a Circle.

Much love to you all – I am off now, I’m going to go and hang out with my baby niece, one of the grandchildren that my stepfather never lived to meet. She has his reddish hair and Hildebrand grin; I know that he’ll be smiling down on us this afternoon.

So much love if you are also dealing with a grief, recent or not -some sadnesses never go. We don’t get over them, they become a part of us and who we are. And that is ok.

I’ll be making my stepfather’s salad dressing tonight and knocking back a wee dram (or two). And playing the Kinks, which was Mat’s favourite music. What do you do to remember those you have lost? Tells us in the comments.

Till next week

Eleanor

xxx