MSA Trust

A chain of help through history

Our member, Freda Earl, blogs about why she volunteers for the Trust

Why do I volunteer? Mainly because in the last 77 years there have been so many people who have contributed to my life by their voluntary work and I know that like everyone else, my life would have been so much less enjoyable without their efforts.

Most of them I didn’t know and never will. I vaguely remember the terrifying women, now long dead, who ran the Hayes End Family planning clinic. Without them my mother who was born with a hole in the heart might have died having a forbidden second baby. If that is too heavy, what about the people who ran the cat rescue who provided Toddles the tabby kitten with white paws who gave me such delight? I was only five when I was allowed chose his name.

I see volunteering as a chain of help stretching down through history where each generation is helped by the one before and then goes on to help the next. It seems to me that one thing that makes us human is reaching out to each other. I’m afraid I have always found the deities on offer world wide rather deaf on the subject of help.

My husband Victor and I always volunteered. Sometimes for something which benefited us personally and sometimes because it was something we felt strongly about. Our double reward was a sense of satisfaction and that whenever we moved house it helped us to meet like minded people.

As Victor’s MSA got worse he had to give up all this. First to go was a monthly market stall when he could no longer stand and raise his arms to help put up the gazebo without falling over. Chairmanship of a local charity went followed by his council work as his slow speech made the meetings too long

At first I could help by doing his typing or take over duties so that he did not feel so bad. The word useless began to appear more often.

Everything I did had to go as well, finishing with the chairmanship of the allotment society which went suddenly in the middle of organising the annual open day when Victor’s sleep disorder suddenly got out of hand and he couldn’t be left.

I could not bear the idea of wasting all the knowledge and experience of caring for Victor for eight years so now I am an official MSA Trust knowledge and awareness volunteer with a badge. There is a volunteer task for everyone. I could no more organise a sponsored mud-bath than fly but I can and do talk to a wide range of people about MSA

Closer to home, I help with the local hospice in the gardens, taking people on tours round the building and helping with carers’ events and I have just been re-elected to the local council. These are all good places for increasing knowledge and awareness about MSA. Win-win.

blog-flowers

Here is a photo of the wreath we made for Victor. From the oasis which had already been to three funerals to the flowers and herbs from the allotments and people’s gardens all the friends who contributed are volunteers of one sort and another.

There was even a volunteer grasshopper who sat quietly on a flower all the way from home to the crematorium and back.


Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the blogs published on these pages are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the MSA Trust.

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