Learning from Angela

I started volunteering at Strathcarron Hospice last year and I absolutely love it. I help out on the reception desk, just stepping in once in a while when one of the regular volunteers has to take a day off.  My mum’s been a volunteer at the hospice for years, and I used to think it was the sort of thing that I would do when I was old or retired too. I am so glad that I didn’t wait that long. I love the place but, more importantly, I love the people; staff, patients, their families - the lot.

When I first started working at the hospice, I was warned that one day; I would come to work, check the front desk diary and discover that someone I knew personally had been admitted as a patient. Strathcarron covers a wide area, including Stirlingshire, Falkirk and parts of North Lanarkshire and - as I live in Stirlingshire, have family and friend connections all around those areas and grew up in Cumbernauld - it was inevitable that that day would come sooner rather than later.

Last week, during my morning on, I was shocked and deeply saddened to discover that one of the nicest people I've known was not only a patient, but a patient who was almost at the end of her pathway. Her name was Angela Fullerton and I was privileged enough to be allowed, by her lovely family, to hold her hand, say my goodbyes and, very importantly,  pass on Alex’s love and adieus before she died a few hours later.

Years ago, Alex came home from work one evening and told me he’d come across a great wee coffee shop in Stirling (Alex is not only a master at his craft, he is also a connoisseur of coffee shops. His working day can be made or broken by the location of the sites he has to visit or work at, depending on the quality of the available coffee shops!) Cisco’s fast became – and still is – Alex’s favourite stop for coffee and he has been known to take detours just to ‘pick up a Cisco’s’. Consequently, we’ve got to know David Tortolano, who owns and runs the shop, and the rest of the family fairly well. They’re all simply lovely - all of them (and there are lots of them!). From David - ‘the main man’ – who remembers everyone’s name and everyone’s tipple (well, most of the time..!); to Benny, David’s ever-present Dad who has a permanent cosy smile and plenty of friendly chit-chat; to the rest of the family, who don’t work in the coffee shop but are familiar faces in businesses in and around Stirling; and finally, to ‘the girls’ - David’s mum and his sisters, some of whom work in the shop the rest of whom are often just in the shop, having dropped by for a coffee, a blether or both.

My first encounter with Angela was not long after Alex had told me about Cisco’s. I’d been shopping in Stirling and decided to try it out for a take-away coffee to drink in the car on the way home. I was served by a pretty, vivacious, smiling, trendy, chatty, whirlwind of a woman. We blethered, had a laugh and discovered that we had kids in the same year at school. I remember telling Alex that he was right about the new wee coffee shop; the coffee was great and, just as importantly, so were the people. I remember telling Alex about the woman that served me , about how she was so friendly, though a bit scatty and getting everyone else in the shop harassed (but didn’t notice as she was too busy chatting and laughing) and how pretty she was with her trendy head scarf.  By this time Alex was already on first name terms with them all and knew instantly that I was referring to Angela. I was shocked, years later, to discover that Angela hadn’t been wearing head scarves as a fashion accessory – I’d had absolutely no idea that she was ill at that time. You simply would never have known. As I said, that first encounter was years ago and she simply never changed. Whether I was being served by her in Cisco’s, had bumped into her in the town, or had met her when she was out for lunch with her sisters (the sight and sound of which always made me smile – they’re such an attractive bunch, so fashionable and hip but always having a laugh and making more noise than everyone else in the restaurant put together), Angela was always the same; full of chat, full of fun, full of life – and full of fight against her cancer.

Alex and I met the Tortolano girls just before Christmas when we were out for an, ahem, ‘Impressions in Stone Board Meeting’ (...i.e. Alex and I were out for lunch...!) There was Angela, as usual - in the thick of it with her sisters, her mum and her nieces around her – having a laugh, chatting away, looking gorgeous and appearing to be fit and healthy.

I’m still finding it hard to believe that, only a few weeks later, Angela’s no longer with us. What a devastating loss to her family, her friends and everyone else who’s been lucky enough to know her in the past fifty odd years.

It’s really difficult sometimes to find anything good, or positive, when life’s not been fair; we sometimes simply can’t get over the fact that it always seems to be the good guys that are taken away from us long before their time. However, after her heart-warming, heart-wrenching funeral today - where Angela’s priest and her family spoke with the sort of true passion, love and honesty that is rarely witnessed at such an occasion - I’m thinking about Angela and her whole attitude to life. I wasn’t a close family friend, just a pal through the coffee shop, and I would never have known that Angela was ill if her brother hadn’t told me a while back. She never, ever complained to me, she was always upbeat, she had an almost tangible pride in her kids and she was, quite simply, a really nice person to be around.

So, in tribute to Angela, I’m reminding myself that the best way to live my life is with a truly positive outlook, no matter how bad things seem. She was so good at that. And I am definitely going to keep on looking for that bit of good that definitely does exist in every single day – even if some days it takes a little more effort to look for it than others.