A Long Walk into The Future

Elizabeth Brown

That was the closest moments I ever shared with my brother Drew as we sat on the grass picnicking on odds and ends we had just bought in Tesco in Fort William. It was a glorious day for the west coast as it can be now and then, and we were so pleased to have the sun and warmth on that special day. Loch Linnhe was at her best - the water still and calm leading your eye across to the entrance to Loch Eli. We talked of the morning - we had just buried our lovely mum in Pettyfuir Cemetery in Oban - she was almost 85 and had hardly been ill all her life and we had rejoiced in her love as we both took a cord and lowered her in beside my dad that morning. Drew was worried about me, I could tell, but he never said more than "take care" as he saw me in to the bus to head for Shiel Bridge in the north. There I was to start The Great Outdoors Challenge - to walk alone over the remote hills and glens of the North of Scotland over the next 2 weeks.

Now many people could think it was pretty cold of me to bury my mother and head off on a trek through the Highlands on the same day. But you see my son had been recently diagnosed as schizophrenic and I had been fund-raising for about 6 months to raise money for a research centre into mental illness. I couldn't let all those people down and I couldn't let my mum down, she had been almost the only one left to help me as friends and family slipped away from me, unable to cope with my son Scott's strange behaviour. But my mum was so strong and brave and I had somehow to find that same strength and bravery to cope with whatever was ahead of me. As I stepped off the coach outside my check-in point outside the Shiel Bridge Hotel, I actually felt a sense of freedom I had not had for many years. People had asked would I not be afraid in the hills on my own(l had asked Christine to go with me but her reply was "200 miles - you must be joking"), but you can't tell people that you are afraid of your own son, and would actually feel safer in the mountains where you know he can't find you. On many occasions his illness had tormented him so that he was violent to me - he had hit me on the head as I drove down the fast lane of the motorway, he had locked me in the house so he could beat me up and I could not escape, he had without any warning kicked me against a wall leaving me with a permanently twisted spine.

So as I set off under the shadow of The Five Sisters of Kintail, I was quite happy to be there, no-one knew exactly where I was, I could cry if I wanted and no-one could see and I had time to think.

As I walked along the bank of the River Sheil, I heard a lamb bleating and followed the sound since I could not see it. At the bank I looked down below me where the river had eaten the bank away almost beneath my feet. There was the lamb standing in the water unable to get back up and in danger of falling in to the deeper waters just inches away.

I knelt and braced myself and knew I had only one chance to save it. If I tried and failed the lamb would be frightened and could jump to its death. I was surprised how deep its little fleece was as I grabbed a huge handful and heaved with all my might. The lamb came up quite easily and flew over my head on to the bank behind me where it scrambled up and ran for its mother bleating away again with joy this time and suckling in as soon as it could.

I lay back on the grass to catch my breath, the sun dappling over my face through the leaves of the silver birches above. As I lay still something dawned on me. All my life I had been the little sister, the beloved daughter and I had gained great strength from that. Now it was my turn to be the parent, to use that strength and love to help my son Scott in whatever way I could and this was the start of it. Whatever lay ahead for the two of us I would cope and I remembered a memorial stone I had once seen on the Fife Coastal Path Time Flies, Shadows Fall Love is Eternal Over All.

So I put on my rucksack and started off up the glen on my long walk into the future.