Finding Shelter during Illness

The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge

Dappled light and ferns in our Woodland Garden with my copy of The Scent of Water

“It has happened and I am home again. There’s a sense of awe when the impossible thing that you refused has happened, and it's over, and you don't know whether you went on refusing and it happened just the same, or whether somehow you accepted. But anyhow it's over. But I am not as happy as I thought I'd be because when something you have dreaded comes to an end there's a sense of anticlimax, like dust in the mouth. All the crashing ruin, the falling and tumbling, are over, but the dust is horrible.

They say it won't happen to me again but I expect they only say it to comfort me. But I must think it won't.

I must be like the people who plant gardens and build houses all over again where the earthquake has been. At the back of their minds they know there may be another quake but with the front of their minds they plant gardens…”

Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water, ch 5

Facing illness with Cousin Mary

Six years ago, right about this time of spring when the grass pollen is at its peak, I found myself suddenly and dramatically allergic to everything. I had been out all day planting out a hundred boxwood plants in our new parterre garden, and then that evening I woke up to find my throat closing off when I tried to inhale. After a few trips to the ER, allergy testing and being given numerous meds and an emergency Epinepherine injector, I found myself unable to dig in my garden, go for a walk outside, or even to drive to the grocery store without having an episode. My allergy bucket was full, and all that was left to do was to stay indoors, mostly in my own room, and wait for my body to hopefully become less reactive.

During that summer, I picked up The Scent of Water for the first time.

Instantly, I felt a sense of empathy for Cousin Mary, and the encouragement that I needed to face that scary and grievous summer trying to be a mother of three while not being able to go anywhere or do anything. It was also when this sudden onset of severe allergies happened that my doctor told me the further news—that they likely happened because I have an underlying auto-immune disease. This made a lot of sense, but nothing has yet become clear.¹ I am still waiting to see what my genetics have in store for my physical future, while also working each day to care for myself and honor my limits.

That is quite enough of my medical history (more than I planned to share), but I know that I am not alone in having lived through scary medical issues. You too have your own stories. It may be infertility, claustrophobia, or an old back injury.² It may be severe depression, arthritis, or heart issues. In any case, we all, as humans, eventually come up against our physical and mental limits. We hold between our own hands, as Abraham Baker did with the old chest, both the wild free life of the bird and underneath the smiling skull that reminds us of our death:

“I can see Abraham’s huge hands holding the skull and the bird together so that they are one thing. To me they are the symbol of so much, body and soul, time and eternity, death and life beyond death, even of the two halves of my own life, the sick times and the times of respite…” Ch 10

Somehow we have to carry both with us each day, though sometimes more one than the other.

We all can relate to Cousin Mary’s need to find solace and peace during those times of fear and trembling for our mortal bodies. We all need someone, or some place, to hold us in the storm.

Turville cottage by Yulia Goes Travelling. I have included several photos in this post from Turville in the Chiltern Hills, which I have been told was Goudge’s inspiration for Appleshaw.

“…I remember now that I did accept, that night when I woke up in the hospital room and there was the night light burning, and the night nurse moving in and out, and I realized that I was sane again.

I was so thankful that I said, Yes, I'll do it. You might say that wasn't a real acceptance because what I'd refused had already happened to me. But yet it was. You can go on refusing even after it's happened to you…

I can't talk to people because this illness isn't like other illnesses; all that's worst in it you have to keep buried so as not to distress people, for one must not spread fear. And anyhow they wouldn't understand….”

Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water, ch 5

Finding Hope