Flowers Grow in the Strangest Places

We need to nurture those around us. They won't always be there.

This week marks a year since one of our best friends took his own life. He was the best man at our wedding. We spent years talking, spending time together and we were family, in some ways.

I always knew that he found life difficult. I didn’t know that there would be a sudden end point to that life, certainly not in the now. He was a teacher. A musician. He played us down the aisle. It’s hard to believe it has been a year since he left us.

As I look back at my life, I recognise that being a leader in education has given me so much, and yet, it has taken so much away. We get busy, we dedicate our lives to making the world a better place. We talk, yes, we talk about wellbeing. But it doesn’t always mean that wellbeing is the centre of our duty of care to professionals.

I wish I had looked away from work to talk to him more often. I wish that I had not let the days roll by without a word. I wish that he had known that we were there for him.

Sacrificing our friends and family for a job seems ludicrous in principle, and yet it is so easily done. How often have we arranged to meet people who mean the world to us, only to cancel because of late nights, lack of energy, or just conflicting demands? How much have we allowed people to drift because we believe they will always be there?

Life has a funny way of showing you that pausing is important. It happened to me when I became very poorly with pneumonia at the start of Covid and I couldn’t work. It was a pivotal point in my life where I assessed what was important to me, what I needed and what I needed to give up. Our friend’s death was another pause point. This time, I reflected on who was important and how much time and effort I had put in to being a friend and a family member.

It is not always easy to get it right. It is hard to balance our careers and families and friends and health. But one of those is less important than the others. Our careers are functional, even when they are rooted in social justice. Centring our whole world on our careers means the other important things may fall away.

This afternoon, I was in the garden. The recent snow had broken a branch clean off the magnolia tree. The branch had been on the ground, untouched since then. Today I saw that two magnolia flowers, that had not been there before the branch broke, had appeared.

Years ago, I was grieving another ending and I remember sitting in a garden and noting that flowers grow in the strangest places. Even, like here, on dead branches. The flowers are a legacy.

My friend’s legacy is his hug, his incredible musical ability and his effervescence. It makes me wonder what my legacy will be - not in terms of work, but in terms of the humans I love. They are worth looking up for.

Take some time this week to connect with your loved ones. Leave no room for regrets.

xx