Encourage

When things are difficult we look to our inner-resources; we ask for support from those who love us; we seek specialist advice and care. People say, “there’s always someone worse off than you.” My response is to feel ‘that doesn’t do it at all’ and then ‘but it does make me wonder what help they get.’ In ‘sustaining our love of life’ other people do encourage me. Three visual events have touched me this week [TV and Facebook]. 16-year-old Dara McAnulty won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing and spoke of being bullied and being autistic. Peter Scott-Morgan uses synthesised speech and avatars to improve and prolong his life with motor neurone disease. A South African ex-colleague shared a video of a group of Ugandan young women and men dancing and it made me realise that dance has indeed a language all of its own.