I’m out for a walk when I pass the vicar of our village church. She hurries past, head down and lips pressed together, her body language telling me she does not want to engage in even brief pleasantries. She has been the vicar here for about twenty years, she christened two of my children but I no longer attend church having lost my faith some years ago. I had a fairly religious upbringing, Church of England school and Sunday School every week although my dad, an atheist or perhaps an agnostic, only sets foot in church for weddings and funerals. My mum, however attended the village church almost every single week of the first twenty years that she lived here. Sadly, for the past few years it has been beyond her capabilities to attend. She has probably forgotten that the church even exists.

Despite the fact that my mum was such a regular, the vicar has not once knocked on my parents’ door to see how they are. It’s been three years at least since my mum last made it to church, surely a quick home visit would be the usual protocol. The vicar must have seen them regularly stumbling along the lane to the village shops or waiting at a bus stop. We all live in a small village in Kent. My house is a stone’s throw from the church and my parents aren’t more than a few minutes walk. Was my mum such an invisible or unimportant member of the congregation that nobody noticed when she stopped attending after twenty years? What is the point of a vicar if he/she doesn’t even check up on their parishioners? You can probably tell, I am quite resentful about this.

On a more positive note, my mum and dad have been noticed by lots of people and have received some lovely offers of help. For the past couple of years they have rarely left the village but, before then, drivers would often see them waiting at a bus stop and pull over and offer them a lift. More than one complete stranger drove them into town and left a phone number in case they needed further lifts. My parents have never driven and I do think their knowledge of public transport was very beneficial to them until recently. The local bus drivers would literally drop them at their front door. Now I have to take them anywhere they need to go and my mum struggles to get in and out of my car. They do still manage to walk to the village shops once a week though and are always warmly greeted in the little cafe .

My parents live close to a school and I am sometimes irritated by the careless pavement parking outside their house but one or two of the young mums have put notes through my parents’ front door asking if they need help with shopping. During the pandemic complete strangers put cards through with telephone numbers and offers of help on them. Most people are kind.

When I took my mum and dad for their last vaccination my mum was doddering along to the clinic holding onto my dad, to be honest they seem to hold each other up, and a woman said quietly to me she’d often spotted them around and that she really admired them. ”That generation are so stoic and just get on with things don’t they?” she commented. Yes, they do. My dad literally never complains about anything or anyone. Unfortunately I do think that people who kick up a fuss get the most help, my mother-in-law being a case in point.

My parents’ next door neighbour, ninety years old, rang me after my dad’s heart attack asking if there was anything she could do. Bless her, she was then looking after her husband with Alzheimer’s and had her hands completely full. If my dad hasn’t seen her for a couple of days he rings just to make sure she is alright. Decent, kind people looking after each other. The world needs more of that

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

A view of our village church