On the first day of our summer holiday, we called at Morrisons supermarket at Enterprise Five in Bradford, Karen, my wife fell and consequently we spent the first evening of our holiday at A&E at the Bradford Royal Infirmary where we discovered that not only had she broken her elbow, but she also had arthritis in the elbow joint.
Karen normally walks with two crutches due to arthritis in her knees, so we wondered how on earth we were going to cope. We stayed with my brother and sister-in-law on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights and assumed that we would have to come back home on Thursday. The problem was that we were planning on camping, we are fairly recent converts to live under canvas, but with Karen being totally immobile, we were stuck.
It is at times like this when you learn about the kindness of others. The staff at Morrisons couldn’t have been kinder, they did everything that they could to help, and we are indebted to them. We had the loan of a wheelchair from St Andrews Methodist Church by the end of Tuesday and the loan of Karen’s sister’s caravan for the holiday. The people at the caravan site couldn’t have been more helpful and we managed to get our holiday thanks to the kindness and generosity of people.
It is an education pushing a wheelchair around, Karen’s mobility was severely restricted, because she had her right arm in a sling, meaning that she could only use one crutch, she had also hurt her left knee in the fall meaning that walking was very slow. We stopped at a supermarket in Scarborough and called at the loos, the wide access toilet was being cleaned which meant Karen had to go into the ladies. A total stranger helped by holding the door open and making sure Karen was okay, she then waited for Karen and escorted her back out to the wheelchair, we never even knew her name, but are indebted to her.
I am also indebted to the elderly gentleman who was eating his picnic in Sedbergh while I was trying to push Karen up a steep gradient to the carpark and managed to get the wheel of the wheelchair stuck in the inconvenient gap in some paving stones, he immediately came to my rescue. Not everybody was kind, and it was an education pushing a wheelchair around, I think that everybody who sits on council planning meetings should have a go, we discovered just how inaccessible some accessible toilets are, negotiating uneven surfaces, steep gradients, doors that slam shut before you have a chance to get through them, and rooms with insufficient space to turn a chair around, meaning that you either have to reverse in, or out.
In his letter to the Galatians St Paul lists the fruits of the Holy Spirit and one of the gifts he mentions is “Kindness” which tells me that this is core to our way of life as Christian people. Karen and I are indebted to the genericity and kindness we have had showered upon us over the last two weeks, there is little doubt in our minds that had it not been for that kindness, we would have had to come home a fortnight ago and would not have been able to do all the things we have done during our holiday. We are also thankful that arriving home in Ipswich there is a wheelchair waiting for us thanks to the Ipswich Methodist Circuit. A big thank you to everyone who has helped in our time of need, we look forward to passing the kindness on to others!