INTRO | ALAN MILES

Facing Up To Our Final Big Challenge

Was it time to admit defeat, or was there still another adventure?

That’s us, me and Lena, pictured in 2015. Look pretty happy, don’t we? We were, still are in 2020, although our lives have changed in ways we could never have imagined.

It all started with a 40-minute meeting in a dingy office in Salford, Manchester a couple of years before the photo. We were assigned one last challenge — our toughest yet.

Our lives had been eventful even before we met. We’d both chased adventure and taken risks, never thinking too far into the future. Still a teenager, Lena left home in Sweden to study dance in New York; she spent the next 10 years dancing the world from her base in Paris.

I’d drifted into English language teaching, and my school, in the center of London’s theaterland, had branches everywhere. Where would I like to go to get more experience? I chose Beirut — France sounded fun. How little we knew back then! By the time I boarded the plane though, I’d done my research: I was headed for Lebanon.What my research failed to tell me was that Lebanon was headed for civil war, and for 18 months I would have a ringside seat.

That short period was a life-changer for me. It’s where I woke up to the realization that the world wasn’t full of neat, well-ordered suburbs and ideas and attitudes. It’s where I started to write — English language books that would make me a living for the next few years, and a novel, The Lebanese Troubles, which sat lost and not quite finished for 30 years till a daughter fished it out of storage. Beirut was where Lena had spent a year too, leaving just as I arrived.

We missed each other there but mutual friends introduced us 7 years later in Abu Dhabi. By then both of us had moved on. Lena had just hung up her dancing boots to follow a boyfriend. I’d failed at marriage, was finished with teaching, and was having fun running the local radio station. (Don’t ask how! Let’s just say it was a time and place where confidence carried greater weight than competence.) The last thing either of us was looking for was a new partner.

We talked about Beirut till late that first night.

It was three months before we met again. One of my DJs persuaded me to come to a party with him — it was that Swedish girl’s birthday, the one I’d said I liked.

Three days later and Lena and I were showing off our new rings, telling our friends we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. The friends were telling us we were crazy. We were 30-year-olds behaving like teenagers. Were we really sure about this? We were.

Together, our adventures continued. I’m not suggesting everything was always fun. Adventures always have their ups and downs. Some days are easy, some tough; sometimes it’s exhilarating, sometimes terrifying. You’re on a roller-coaster without a harness. The trick is never to let it throw you off. And if it does, get back on.

Lena sailed through her first pregnancy, and a couple of days overdue, was scheduled for induction … until, an hour before the procedure, a scan revealed that our baby had died.

But later we went on to have three beauties. (Kids, you’ve got my bank details, right?)

I had babies too. In my mid-30s I accidentally stopped being employed and became an employer. Two of my baby businesses saw a spectacular rise … and an even more spectacular demise. Sometimes life seemed to be treating us well; more often we were living on the breadline.

I flipped my career several times, always following my latest interest. From radio I went to publishing. Then it was the brave new world of home computers. Then back to the Middle East to work with governments on job creation. Then developing the HR software package to make all my clients perfect.

With every change of direction came a change of location … Cambridge, Swansea, Jeddah, Bahrain. Our children still don’t know where they truly belong.

Many relationships would have foundered. Ours thrived, because Lena brought calm to my chaos. When times were hard, she always brought home the bacon. (Swedish, of course!) Sometimes she did jobs she didn’t love, like getting up at 3am every morning for a 100 mile round-trip to take spectacle frames from Cambridge to London. Sometimes she did jobs she adored, like teaching the reception class at school in Bahrain. Never once did she complain, or suggest that the lifestyle I gave her wasn’t the one she’d always dreamed of.

There was just one time I thought I’d lost her. It was the summer vacation, and as usual Lena had flown off to Sweden with the kids while I stayed behind in Bahrain, sweltering in the heat and the pressure of keeping my business alive. Tonight they were due back, so I went to the airport to meet them. I waited and waited, until the last of the passengers filtered through Arrivals. No Lena. No children.

I spoke to the guy in Information. There was no information. I kept pressing him and after an age, he finally got hold of the flight list. No record of them. What could he tell me? Nothing. (Sometimes it’s hard to remember that before the internet and mobile phones took off, most of us knew nothing most of the time.)

I drove back home dreading the worst. Had there been a terrible accident somewhere? I switched on the BBC World News. Was there anything? No, still nothing. My only consolation was that at least the kids were with Lena. If something had gone wrong, she’d know what to do. She’d keep them safe.

Finally, early the next morning, I got a call. It was Lena, on a bad line from … Moscow. Moscow?! There’d been a delay, and they’d missed a connecting flight, so found another route via Russia. But when they landed in transit, they didn’t have visas, so they were marched off to the airport hotel, where they were apparently under guard in their room. She was allowed one call. And yes, the kids were having a great time, mimicking the woman on security duty …

Three days later, after another detour to Amman, they were all safely back in Bahrain, beaming. Just like always, Lena had handled it.

I could tell you a thousand other stories, but by now you know us well enough to understand the impact of that momentous Salford meeting in 2013. We were about to face the greatest challenge of our lives. That’s the adventure I’m writing about on Medium.

Because on that day, in that tiny office, we heard the flat pronouncement from the consultant.

Lena had Alzheimers.

In a moment, it seemed, all the joy had been sucked out of our lives. This was the end of our journey.

How had we suddenly grown old?

Seven years on, and it’s clear it wasn’t the end of our journey at all. The consultant’s words were just the opening sentence in a new chapter. I’m finishing the rest of the story here on Medium.

With exhilarating stories, like Wiggling on Windermere. With comic stories, like One Place Never To Draw The Line. With problem-solving stories, like The Day I Kidnapped My Wife. And with love stories, like Love In The Emergency Room.

Spot the common thread? Stories.

I was listening to an interview with the American novelist and short story writer Richard Ford the other day, and he put it beautifully:

“You write stories about things because there’s no adequate vocabulary otherwise.”

Precisely!

Sometimes you’ll see me drawing a lesson and dispensing advice from our experience — and I hope articles like When Should You See A Doctor About Your Dementia Fears? or Dementia Volunteer will be helpful if you’re one of the millions providing care at home to a relative or a friend.

But even if dementia has never come near your life, but you enjoy tales of human endeavor, people staying positive when the odds are stacked against them, then I hope you’ll find something of value in my stories too.

As I wrap this up, let’s focus for a minute on Positivity in our uncertain Covid times.

In my Medium tag, I’ve described myself as a ‘hopeless optimist’. That’s wrong and I need to change it.

I’m not an optimist at all. I’m a realist. I know our last challenge will end soon. In the end, Lena will die. So will I. So will we all. That’s life.

What’s important is that between now and that end point — whenever it comes — we live our lives to the max, taking every opportunity to learn, to develop, to help, to try, to enjoy, to laugh, to dance, to love. That’s the message of our adventure. Being positive. I know Lena, if she still had words, would agree.

Optimism is lazy. It says everything will turn out fine in the end, no matter what I do.

Positivity works hard. It says I need to make an effort to improve our situation now, no matter how things turn out in the end.

If ever there was a time for positivity it’s now. As lockdown continues, I sense a rising tide of carping and criticism, journalists and politicians jostling for the upper hand with arguments about what went wrong, who was responsible — and irresponsible — and how they’d have done it better.

It doesn’t matter. It’s past. Get over it.

I see a nation frightened for its future. Will our children be safe at school? Should we risk going back to work? Will my job still be there?

These are exactly the existential questions Lena and I have had to face in these last 7 years. The world doesn’t really change. We change.

We need to find different ways to cope, different ways to prosper. We need to look forward, not back. We need to remember that life is finite and that by eliminating risk, we risk eliminating joy.

Every one of us today is faced with the same choice Lena and I had in that Salford office. Do we accept that life is effectively over, give up and slowly wither away? Or do we accept the challenge and move forward, filling the time we’re allotted with positivity and brand new adventures?

Enjoy the stories. I look forward to yours.