My port in a storm – the relationship that helped to shape who I am today
Care Day is a day for us. For Care-Experienced people to celebrate ourselves, our achievements and our community. It’s a day in the calendar that fills me with so much love, pride and hope. And, it also makes me think of all those who’ve walked beside me on my journey. Sometimes, growing up I felt so alone. I felt like everyone was doing things to me not with me. So, the people who showed up, stood up and refused to shut up mean more to me than words can describe.
Relationships and those we have them with, influence how we see the world and, how we see ourselves.
This Care Day, I want to celebrate someone very special to me. My primary school headteacher, Edith Innes.
Edith came into my life when I was 4 years old. Life had already been pretty tough but, her smile, the way her smile reached her eyes, always made me feel warm. My earliest memory of Edi is her taking my hand and walking me through the school in my socks, to fetch my shoes that had been removed and thrown behind a piano by another teacher in a fit of rage. I didn’t know what I felt at the time, but I do now. I felt safe. Someone was standing up for me.
I moved schools a few years later but I never forgot the kindness Edi had shown me. That’s why I was delighted when a few years later, she walked into my new school. I instantly recognised her, but her surname had changed – so that threw me off! She recognised me too. Then, when a major life event happened, and I needed a lot of support and home wasn’t the right nor safe place for me but being in a classroom wasn’t right either. Edi again embodied that feeling of safety. She sat with me and held my hand, just like she had done when I was 4 and sheltered me through one of the darkest moments of my life at that point. She was my port in the storm. And she still is.
I moved on to high school but, as my care journey progressed and things got a little tougher, I needed my ‘Edi’, my port in the storm. So, I reached out via email, sending a heartfelt message, though never expecting a reply. But I got one. It went a little like this “Oh Beth, I’m so sorry to hear things are so difficult for you right now, but there is not one bit of grammar in this email, and I taught you better than that…!”
Edi then embraced me the way she did when I was four, and the way she always has done. She would come and take me from my children’s home on Sundays, we’d go to her mum’s house (“Wee Granny”) and we’d tidy up and do Wee Granny’s gardening, although never to her satisfaction! We’d cook lovely meals together (like naan bread from scratch), I’d stay overnight in the sofa bed in the conservatory, and I’d listen to the rain on the roof – I’d feel content and loved but, most important of all, I felt safe. Rain sounds still soothe me to this day. Birthdays and Christmases were spent with Edi and her family. I was welcomed into her family with open arms and still am to this day.
Like many relationships, ours has changed over time. Now I get to treat Edi to lunch or dinner, we meet up for coffee, we chat all the time. She never left me and I, will never leave her.
I know it was not chance that I met Edi at 4 years old. God aligned our paths together and he kept us together no matter what. I will forever be in Edi’s debt for all she has done for me. I love her more than words can describe. Edi was keeping The Promise before there even was a Promise.
We all need a port in the storm.
I hope one day, I can be an Edi for a little Beth.
Because the world needs more Edis.
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