The 50 List – A Father’s Heartfelt Message to his Daughter: Anything Is Possible. Nigel Holland

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I tried to put my feet into my wellington boots. I was OK with shoes and sandals, but there was something about the angle your foot is at when you feed it into a wellington boot that gave me problems. Once my toes were inside, I couldn’t seem to straighten them out by myself. My parents also noticed that my gait wasn’t quite natural; I would walk in a way that perhaps I would today describe as ‘hopeful’, flicking my lower legs forward, rather than placing them as you would normally, in the hope that the heel would hit the ground before the toes did. If the latter happened (and as I grew, this became more and more evident), the result – flat on my face – sure wasn’t pretty.

      I had no idea how much this concerned them, obviously. My toes did what they did, and my gait was what it was. I felt no frustration about any of this; I just worked around it. I was only little, after all. I knew no different.

      I had other things on my mind, in any case. While Mum and Dad tried to rationalize their concerns by saying my problems were just part of me ‘growing up’, I was much more concerned with that other big growing-up thing: not being a baby any more, I couldn’t wait to start school. With two big brothers already there, I was aching to join the party. I didn’t want to be stuck at home with only my little sister for company; I wanted to be where the big boys were.

      When my brother Gary announced one morning that today was the day, my excitement at going knew no bounds. But I was destined for disappointment. The first disappointment was the news, once we arrived there, that I wouldn’t be joining my big brothers in the junior school as I’d expected. I would have to go elsewhere – well, a whole playground away, anyway – as I was only old enough, apparently, to join the infants. The second disappointment was that as soon as Mum left, all my confidence went scuttling away with her. Within the space of a few hours I’d had all the stuffing knocked out of me; I felt anxious, alone and very lost.

      Thankfully, the feeling didn’t last. In fact, another revelation was that the business of making friends there was unexpectedly straightforward, and seemed to consist of the simplest of exchanges.

      ‘This your first day?’ a boy said.

      ‘Yes,’ came my mumble.

      ‘OK. Wanna play football?’

      Job done.

      Best of all was that it seemed to work with almost everyone (bar the girls, of course). You played football with someone and you had a friend for the rest of your natural life. Or at least for the immediate future, till the bell went, which, as with any four-year-old, was as far ahead as I generally thought.

      But the problems with my curling toes weren’t going away and had now started to impact on my getting dressed for school. It had begun to take me so long that Mum even began stressing that I’d become phobic about going for some reason.

      Nothing could have been further from the truth. I loved school. But certain aspects of it were becoming more challenging for me, clearly. And though, once again, I wasn’t really aware of this myself, my parents became increasingly concerned. Their concern mostly centred on my gait. I didn’t walk like my siblings and no one knew why – and my gait definitely wasn’t getting better. After a couple of months of this, my mother made her mind up: she would take me to the local clinic to see a doctor.

      I still remember my incomprehension about this visit. I wasn’t feeling sick, and nor did I have a sore throat or a rash, but even so, I was being taken out of lessons. Why was that? I was no less confused when we got there and the doctor immediately took off my shoes and socks and began tapping my ankles with a little rubber hammer.

      But it was my mum who was most confused when, the foot inspection over, the doctor turned his attention to my arms and hands. She was just about to ask him what my hands had to do with anything when he let out a loud and alarming ‘Hmmmm …’

      ‘What?’ asked Mum anxiously.

      ‘Hmmm …’ said the doc again. ‘I think young Nigel here needs to go and see a specialist.’

      He then began talking over my head, to my mum, while she helped me put my shoes and socks back on. I didn’t understand much of what he was saying – though I soon would – but the gist of it seemed clear: ‘I don’t actually have a clue what’s wrong with your son, Mrs Holland, so I’ll pack him off to someone who might.’

      On the way home, feeling as you do after a visit to the doctor (a little bit relieved, a lot brave, a tad martyred), I hoped – even expected – that there might be something in it for me. A small toy perhaps, a bag of sweets, a penny lollipop. But I got nothing. Mum was never one for over-indulging her kids. I got deposited straight back at school.

FEBRUARY

      8 February 2012

      Number of inches of snow dumped on Wellingborough in January: Easy – more than enough to prevent me from getting out.

      Ergo, number of challenges so far completed: Still 0.

      However, number of challenges attempted today (finally): 1 – ‘Donate blood.’

      But number of challenges actually completed today: Another big fat 0. Oh, and I also got wet.

      Well, that was a great start, I don’t think. You might have noticed that, despite a flurry of early enthusiasm and activity, there is nothing recorded here for January. Which is because nothing actually happened in January. Yup, that’s correct. Nothing whatsoever. Yes, we ate, slept and did all the day-to-day things that needed doing, but in terms of My Big Important Project, not a thing.

      I know I shouldn’t beat myself up too much. The bottom line is that wheelchairs and snow do not mix – unless you count regularly landing on your own bottom line among your list of favourite pastimes. And it’s not as if I haven’t been getting things under way, making phone calls, sending emails and doing research.

      But I’m frustrated because apart from signing up for the half marathon (which does not mean actually doing it, of course, however many training laps I put in before Christmas), becoming a blood donor was to have been pretty much my first completed challenge, and the one I was most keen to get over with.

      Except I haven’t got it over with. Which is infuriating, as the day began so positively. Well, I say positively, but there wasn’t really anything positive about it. Just naked fear. Because actually I was terrified.

      ‘So why are you doing it, then, Dad?’ Ellie wanted to know. It was a reasonable enough question. Though I was pretty sure that by now she understood the concept of the list and why I was doing it, I wasn’t so sure she’d embraced the idea that it might include doing things I didn’t want to do.

      We were all finishing breakfast, before the kids left for school. Though I say ‘we’, I couldn’t eat a thing, because I was off to become a blood donor in less than an hour, the thought of which had completely robbed me of my appetite.

      ‘Because I’m confronting my fears,’ I said, probably rather grandly, in an attempt, as much as anything, to psyche myself up for it. ‘That’s what you do,’ I went on. ‘That’s what makes it a challenge. That it’s difficult is really the whole point. If it was easy for me, it wouldn’t be challenging, would it? If it was Mum doing СКАЧАТЬ