Seeing the Extraordinary in the Ordinary ……

Guest Post from June Angela, a Tyke in Exile

Today was a very special Sunday, it was a day that we called to see my oldest sister Pat with special needs, 73 years young and now residing in a private nursing home back in our native Yorkshire.   She was much greyer than we last saw her three months ago and the lines etched in her face were more defined than we remember.  We pushed her fastened in her wheelchair as quickly as we could in the bright scorching sunshine to the local garden centre.  Her excitement grew as she noticed a light aircraft in the bright blue sky a familiar noise that we take for granted everyday and yet for Pat, housebound with her friends and carers, the TV Soaps and blended food her only daily treats and we suddenly feel very aware of how much we take for granted ….  After a huge push up an unfriendly wheechair slope we enter a world of colour, soil and beaded jewellery, bling being one of her guilty pleasures.    The other a buttered fruit scone randomly pieced so the pieces are barely chewed and swallowed and  a cup of Yorkshire tea slurped through a straw.  Yet she is happy gloriously happy and in that glimmer of a moment we see in her face and her sister’s reflection in her spectacles and the knowing  that she is free.  One feels humbled in her presence and how  liberating it feels to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.    One of many blessings we have all had today … did you notice yours …..