Root and branch

I have just been tended to by a tree sur­geon. Yes, me, not our olives.

It was a sig­nif­i­cant re­lief, a com­pre­hen­sive sen­sory hour very well-spent (again) up the hill in the vil­lage.

Well, I needed it: Si­nusi­tis not wood­worm, al­though there are ample symp­toms that I am in the leaf-turn au­tumn of life.

All friend­ships sus­tain me. Then you are weav­ing your jour­ney when your path crosses with some­one whose strides are far and be­yond what could be deemed nor­mal. And if they are gen­er­ous with time and will wait for you, are so open to friend­ship and un­stint­ingly kind, you won­der what you have done to be so for­tu­nate.

This is a sin­gle story of local, sum­ming up my deep grat­i­tude for all peo­ple and things local. And in equal mea­sure it is a straight-arm, palm of hand to the stew of noise clog­ging the world, that dush-dush-dush base beat of news and tosh pump­ing from all di­rec­tions, round the clock. If we allow it.

So, to my friend.

Eigh­teen years ago, within days of we im­mi­grants rolling up in the Jan­u­ary with two young chil­dren, our glut of en­thu­si­asm and a dearth of knowl­edge, so many peo­ple came to bed us in. My friend was among the first, the local ar­borist in his lit­tle white Cit­roen van, find­ing time for us while help­ing to sus­tain this val­ley’s patch­work of farms. He taught us how to prune the vine­yard, groves and or­chard. He and his wife in­vited us into their home.

One year on and the snow stayed for a month, freez­ing to death all green­ery on so many of our olives. We were dev­as­tated. We thought we had lost them. My friend saved them all. I think of him every time I look across the grove.

Two years on and our three-year-old son was taken crit­i­cally ill with pneu­mo­nia. We had to leave the farm­house so we could re­place the bro­ken, dusty floors. Where could we live for these months? The ar­borist, his wife and their young daugh­ter gave us space.

Soon after that he told us of his wish to study Chi­nese med­i­cine and acupunc­ture. And so he did, for years. He qual­i­fied and his care turned from trees to peo­ple. That was the pain re­lief I have been so grate­ful to re­ceive this week.

But there is more, much more to this story.

About 10 years ago he said he in­tended to study again. Main­stream med­i­cine this time. He qual­i­fied as a doc­tor in 2015.

I nearly died of pan­cre­ati­tis four years ago. Dur­ing my four-week so­journ in in­ten­sive care he came to see me al­most every morn­ing in the uni­ver­sity hos­pi­tal where he was tak­ing his fi­nals. The psy­cho­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of that was im­mea­sur­able. Then and now he is there for me, for us all.

This is not awe at achieve­ment, how­ever mo­men­tous, but a deeper feel­ing, an ap­pre­ci­a­tion at the weave of local life of which this is yet a mod­est strand. There are so many more I could tell you about, and should, and will… all just as im­por­tant in their way.

If pressed on how he saw him­self, his worth or wish thereof, I have no doubt my friend would strug­gle, laugh, then list, qui­etly – hus­band, fa­ther, son, brother and neigh­bour, but nei­ther his knowl­edge nor call­ing. Which makes him just one among the many, just as he would want it to be.

Com­mu­nity .