Roots #DailyWritingChallenge

My roots run far and wide.

My roots run deep.

They anchor me and centre me,

they are who I am and where I’m from. I was born in Malawi over 40 years ago, although my family all hail from Scotland.  My parents had an urge to see the world and help others, so when an opportunity arose they leapt at it.

When I was born, I was very ill and had to stay in hospital for longer than usual.  I don’t know exactly what was wrong with me, I can only go from what my parents have told me, but I know that I ended up bright yellow with jaundice and had a severe case of septicemia. It was touch an go as to whether I would survive and the doctors feared that even if I did survive I may be brain damaged and never lead a normal life.

I was saved by a man I have never met.  A volunteer at the hospital gave me his blood.  That transfusion saved my life; if it hadn’t had been for the kindness of that stranger, I wouldn’t be here to write this.  I am forever grateful towards the man who saved my life; if I could ever trace him down I would and thank him in person.

As a short aside, I couldn’t move on without mentioning the tragedy of this story.  My parents went to Malawi to help the people there, it was a country that was struggling but was gradually finding its feet.  Now, 40 years later, it is a poorer place than ever before.  It has been crippled by third world dept, a country held back by the greed of others.  Sadly this is the story of half the world-the rich and powerful feed off the poor and vulnerable.

My connection to Scotland is strong although I only lived there for a relatively short period of time.  My parents are from Glasgow and I still have family in that area.  My grandfather, ‘Pop’ we used to call him, was a Cameron.  He was descended from one of the oldest clans in Scotland.  I have visited the ancestral Cameron lands in the highlands, it is a beautiful part of the world and I feel an affinity with it because of my family connection.

My Pop is still a hero of mine and thinking of him is something that always grounds me.  He was a simple man in many ways; he lived in the same council house in Milton on the outskirts of Glasgow for most of his adult life.  During the second world war he lied about his age and signed up to the army.  he trained to be a commando, and although he rarely spoke about his experiences I know that he was one of the soldiers that liberated the victims of concentration camps.  This experience scarred him and the wounds were still clear to see when he was an old man, but he never let his scars define him or defeat him.

During his working life he worked on stream trains and trams; when I was a child he was a caretaker working the the Glasgow school of art.  He brightened the room whenever he came into it; be was a tease and had a gruff demeanor but he was universally loved.  He loved being surrounded his grandchildren and he used to love cooking for us, leaving the kitchen in a destructive mess as the aftermath.

When I am feeling lost or low I think of him.  I think, ‘what would make him proud?’  He is still with me, in my heart, in my roots, still anchoring me and holding me true. When I was 8 years old my family moved to Suffolk; by this point I had already lived in 3 different countries.  My parents and my sister are still here in Suffolk, all these years later; my brother is due to move back when the lockdown allows.  I lived away from my family for a few years, in London, whilst I trained and started my teaching career.

Whilst I was away from home it wasn’t only my family I missed-I also missed the sea.  I didn’t realise until I was away from it for so long that it was part of my roots.  The sea calls to me, it is where I go to find calm and find peace.  I am blessed to live by the sea and feel the hypnotic power of the waves whenever I want.  The sea is eternal and unstoppable.  It is soothing but fearsome.  It will remain long after we are gone, unchanging but forever changing.

I’m not sure why I felt compelled to mention the sea whilst I wrote about roots other than my roots are defined by the people and places that form my history, that have shaped who I am, that stay part of me and anchor me. I’m going to end this piece with a bit of a random fact.  Whilst I was reading ‘Underland’ by Robert Macfarlane, I learned that  in some forests the trees are joined together through their roots.  Under the ground there is an interconnected network of fungi that has a symbiotic relationship with the trees that it is connected to.  Through this network the trees are able to connect and share nourishment.  What makes this so amazing is that this isn’t just trees of the same species or family, trees of completely different species help each other through their underground connected roots.  If a tree is ill and undernourished others nearby will provide it with what it needs to survive.

As I sat down to write this morning I felt that Twitter was acting a bit like this for me.  I awoke despondent and angry, but through the interconnected roots of Twitter, I have been nourished.  Through reading other people’s posts I have been reminded to focus on positives and focus on what is good in my life, it is what I needed to hear today and I thank my Twitter network for providing me with this nourishment.