All you need is love (and a good cheese and onion pie)

I have been writing and posting this blog at 05.00 every Sunday morning since 2009. In all that time I have never missed a Sunday. Every Sunday, without fail. I have only once pre-scheduled a tweet posting. However, this blog posting is the second time of doing just that. The first time was almost a year ago when it was the day after I got married to J. While she is very tolerant of my early morning postings, clearly it was a non-starter on that occasion.

Why the second time? You will have to wait to find out. First I want to talk about Nigel. It’s not his real name. I don’t know him, and only met him the other day while I was out having a pub lunch. He came in with two women, one of whom was helping him as he appeared very unsteady on his feet. He was an elderly gentleman. It became very clear that somewhere along the line Nigel had suffered either some kind of head trauma or illness that had left him with a large degree of neurological impairment. He struggled with his speech (aphasia), had very poor control of his movements, looked gaunt, had no teeth and at times, looked completely disorientated.

The two women on the other hand, were smartly dressed, and looked fit and healthy. I had ordered my meal, cheese and onion pie (the house speciality), fresh garden peas and baby new potatoes in a rosemary dressing. While I waited a sipped a rather good Malbec and half listened to what the trio were talking about. Half listened is a funny term, but for me, as an avid people watcher, it allowed me to gain a glimpse of the trio’s situation.

They sometimes talked about Nigel as if he wasn’t there, and he didn’t participate in the conversation other than to occasionally utter something that was often too difficult to understand.  One of the women was clearly Nigel’s wife, and when she helped Nigel choose his meal, it was with a firmness that didn’t seem to brook any argument. S/he ordered the same meal as me and when it came, his wife cut up the food into small pieces. Nigel appeared to enjoy his cheese pie as much as I did, but his eating was fast and furious. His wife leaned across the table and spoke to him in such a calm and loving way, saying ‘we don’t eat like that, do we Nigel?’. He slowed down and finished his meal quietly.  

The trio left before me, and I doubt I will come across them again. I tell you this story as seeing them brought to mind so many memories. I worked for a few years as a Charge Nurse in a learning disability service in Wales. It was a time that many of the hospitals were resettling their residents into much small community settings. Part of the resettlement programme was to re-introduce individuals into the everyday activities that many of us take for granted, shopping, eating out, gardening and so on. I spent many a lunchtime having a pub meal or walking around our local supermarket with our residents. Almost all of these folk had been in hospital for many years and often appeared bewildered by what they were now experiencing. It was a slow, but rewarding process.  

I like to think that we undertook this programme and took part in the resettlement activities with care and love in our hearts. It might have been a different kind of love to that demonstrated by Nigel’s wife, but I think it was something more than just doing our professional best. These were therapeutic encounters where the emotional ‘being’ of nursing trumped the ‘doing’ of nursing tasks. Love in a personal relationship is fine; thinking about love in a professional relationship is much trickier. One of my favourite authors and psychotherapist, Irvin Yalom, touches upon this subject in his book, Love’s Executioner: ‘Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love’s executioner.’  He is describing a therapeutic encounter with an elderly patient called Thelma who is possessed by a long past love affair that limits her ability to live her present life fully. His book is worth reading for those interested in understanding more about their self and their self in relation to others.

Likewise, way back in 2020, Theodore Stickley and Dawn Freshwater published a thought-provoking paper that explored ‘The art of loving and the therapeutic relationship’. The paper challenged how in the pursuit of evidence-based practice the centrality of the caring relationship can sometimes be lost. It explores the concept of clinical caritas, and why individuals might choose to enter the nursing profession. The paper develops a framework where the art of loving within nursing care is presented. This outlines the balance between concentration, discipline, patience, concern and activity. Collectively these elements provide the boundaries where love may be expressed within the scope of professional practice. In health and care practice we care for others. Such caring is about people and how we relate to them. Our specialist knowledge and knowing are important parts of building and nurturing these relationships, but just like Nigel’s wife, they should be brought to bear with love and care.

That second pre-scheduling. Well just under a year ago, like yesterday, I put on a black suit, purple clogs, and silver bangles. There was a special reason then and it was nothing whatsoever to do with health and social care. Like then, the reason I’m not writing and posting this blog at 5am today for real is that I’m curled up in bed with my beautiful wife J, after celebrating our marriage with friends and family yesterday at our very own wedding festival. It was a special day where our love was shared and which went a long way to make up for our Covid restricted wedding celebrations last year. I will be back next Sunday, alive and kicking, until then, stay safe everyone.