How WALKING saved my mother
To walk or not to walk... Such a question defines families. For decades, my father was the hiking type, covering India and France. I walked less boldly, as a city stroller, while my mother tagged along and my sister stayed at home.
Then our team leader, my father the hiker, died last year and suddenly my mother really got going. She put on her boots and hit the road. Daily. Fervently. It was intriguing.
My mother, June, is now 81, but she began her jaunts after my father became housebound during his final year. She set out simply to report back to him – on the weather, the people, the sights.
He asked her to avoid ‘remote places’, such as the nearby meadows, so she changed her route to cover the Roman walls and the racecourse, which were focal points of the town. An hour’s walking sparked an afternoon’s chat upon her return, and they loved the routine. It was news from afoot. But come widowhood, things picked up a pace. The jaunts turned into proper journeys, double time and at all hours. Friends passing in cars saw June as silver-haired and eternally trim, with a lively gait: ‘No, we can’t keep up with you.’
And I’d phone home to resurrect my father’s warnings about those places off the map.
‘I’ve been trying you all morning,’ the conversation would begin.
‘I’ve been out.’
‘On the meadows?’
‘It’s a lovely day.’
‘On the meadows?’
‘Just at the end…’
Perhaps I should have quoted from various novels, in which women who roam alone end up in bad places: Listen, Mum, remember those Austen and Brontë heroines? They were thought mad or wanton as they tramped around.
But she’d beat me to it, and down the line would come her reasons for setting off.
She enjoyed ‘the wind on my skin’ and ‘thinking of people’s faces’ when passing them. She once said: ‘I follow the sun when I walk,’ a comment that I just had to write down.
Then came the practical reasons, such as shopping. Reduced rubbish collections in her area, plus all the bafflingly colour-coded bins, sent her on regular sorties to the public bins, too.
But I tended to worry. Where was she when the phone kept ringing? What about her other interests, reading and cookery? And by spending so much time a-roving, would people stop visiting?
Then, four months after father’s death, she developed a limp, which was diagnosed as a broken bone in her left foot.
‘From overwalking,’ my sister and I chorused. Yet out of earshot we agreed Mum’s excursions were healthy and bold. Very bold, indeed.
So things carried on, despite the foot problem. Every morning she closed the front door on a house too big, too quiet and too remindful of family years. She left as the neighbours were beginning their commutes to work. She lived alone, so getting out and being in the world was the aim.
And weren’t these walks perhaps also part of the grieving process? Circling the walls or the racecourse gave her time and space to think about her husband. Privately and away from the rest of us. It made sense, if you knew her at all.
‘And there’s something else,’ said my sister, who remains the least pedestrian of us, yet understands best. ‘Mum goes walking because Dad went walking, and of course you’re a walker too.’ I think she was talking about continuity. The parent tagging along had taken up the family cause, and now followed in her husband’s footsteps. Forget India or France, she was just taking familiar paths. But it had become a ritual. It kept her going.
Last week the air felt warm as Mum and I set off with a small bag. She wore a summer outfit of peaked cap, checked trousers (formerly for golf) and black Nikes. She moved easily; the foot had healed. But for once, the sights and sounds around her failed to register. There was hardly any pointing or praising, even at the pretty riverbank where the public bin is. Still, the rhythm of walking leads to talking, and there was plenty of that after we’d made our rubbish drop.
I asked whether her journeys would continue, now there was a chance of a flat closer to town. But there was no answer, as the black Nikes pattered along beside me.
Then, she made a confession. She told me about missing a lift to church and how she walked instead, three miles down a rural road in her Sunday best. She told me about a four-mile trip to see a friend in hospital. Both times were ‘for exercise, of course’, and yet she also said that it ‘felt fitting’ to arrive on foot – even a bit ‘spiritual’.
But she still hadn’t answered my question – until the black Nikes eventually stopped.
‘You know, the flat is near the racecourse. Which means I can walk round it one way, have some lunch, then walk the other way in the afternoon.’ That was a yes, then. Keep on following the sun, Mum.
For more about walking pursuits, see our Classifieds section.
Then our team leader, my father the hiker, died last year and suddenly my mother really got going. She put on her boots and hit the road. Daily. Fervently. It was intriguing.
My mother, June, is now 81, but she began her jaunts after my father became housebound during his final year. She set out simply to report back to him – on the weather, the people, the sights.
He asked her to avoid ‘remote places’, such as the nearby meadows, so she changed her route to cover the Roman walls and the racecourse, which were focal points of the town. An hour’s walking sparked an afternoon’s chat upon her return, and they loved the routine. It was news from afoot. But come widowhood, things picked up a pace. The jaunts turned into proper journeys, double time and at all hours. Friends passing in cars saw June as silver-haired and eternally trim, with a lively gait: ‘No, we can’t keep up with you.’
And I’d phone home to resurrect my father’s warnings about those places off the map.
‘I’ve been trying you all morning,’ the conversation would begin.
‘I’ve been out.’
‘On the meadows?’
‘It’s a lovely day.’
‘On the meadows?’
‘Just at the end…’
Perhaps I should have quoted from various novels, in which women who roam alone end up in bad places: Listen, Mum, remember those Austen and Brontë heroines? They were thought mad or wanton as they tramped around.
But she’d beat me to it, and down the line would come her reasons for setting off.
She enjoyed ‘the wind on my skin’ and ‘thinking of people’s faces’ when passing them. She once said: ‘I follow the sun when I walk,’ a comment that I just had to write down.
Then came the practical reasons, such as shopping. Reduced rubbish collections in her area, plus all the bafflingly colour-coded bins, sent her on regular sorties to the public bins, too.
But I tended to worry. Where was she when the phone kept ringing? What about her other interests, reading and cookery? And by spending so much time a-roving, would people stop visiting?
Then, four months after father’s death, she developed a limp, which was diagnosed as a broken bone in her left foot.
‘From overwalking,’ my sister and I chorused. Yet out of earshot we agreed Mum’s excursions were healthy and bold. Very bold, indeed.
So things carried on, despite the foot problem. Every morning she closed the front door on a house too big, too quiet and too remindful of family years. She left as the neighbours were beginning their commutes to work. She lived alone, so getting out and being in the world was the aim.
And weren’t these walks perhaps also part of the grieving process? Circling the walls or the racecourse gave her time and space to think about her husband. Privately and away from the rest of us. It made sense, if you knew her at all.
‘And there’s something else,’ said my sister, who remains the least pedestrian of us, yet understands best. ‘Mum goes walking because Dad went walking, and of course you’re a walker too.’ I think she was talking about continuity. The parent tagging along had taken up the family cause, and now followed in her husband’s footsteps. Forget India or France, she was just taking familiar paths. But it had become a ritual. It kept her going.
Last week the air felt warm as Mum and I set off with a small bag. She wore a summer outfit of peaked cap, checked trousers (formerly for golf) and black Nikes. She moved easily; the foot had healed. But for once, the sights and sounds around her failed to register. There was hardly any pointing or praising, even at the pretty riverbank where the public bin is. Still, the rhythm of walking leads to talking, and there was plenty of that after we’d made our rubbish drop.
I asked whether her journeys would continue, now there was a chance of a flat closer to town. But there was no answer, as the black Nikes pattered along beside me.
Then, she made a confession. She told me about missing a lift to church and how she walked instead, three miles down a rural road in her Sunday best. She told me about a four-mile trip to see a friend in hospital. Both times were ‘for exercise, of course’, and yet she also said that it ‘felt fitting’ to arrive on foot – even a bit ‘spiritual’.
But she still hadn’t answered my question – until the black Nikes eventually stopped.
‘You know, the flat is near the racecourse. Which means I can walk round it one way, have some lunch, then walk the other way in the afternoon.’ That was a yes, then. Keep on following the sun, Mum.
For more about walking pursuits, see our Classifieds section.