Chapter 15 - Returning to Liverpool
Standing on the edge of possibility
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Trish’s short trip to Holland was just what she needed to shake off any lingering sadness about leaving her job in Bella Bella. Her friend Ben welcomed her at the Amsterdam airport and took her to his grandparents’ home in the countryside. Her days were busy visiting Ben’s family and exploring the local area.
It was winter and the canals that threaded across the landscape were frozen. As the two friends walked along the canals talking about what might lay ahead for each of them back in Canada, they paused to watch and laugh as ducks crash-landed on the ice in their clumsy, unbalanced way. The days passed easily, and Trish enjoyed her time with Ben and his family. Meeting new people, and glimpse of an unfamiliar country gave her the space she needed get out from under the shadow of her final weeks in Bella Bella, before returning to England.
By the time Trish arrived back in Liverpool, she was looking forward to the familiar sights, smells and sounds of the city, as well as the comfort of the Lewis family home on Crofton Crescent. She couldn’t wait to see her friends and imagined they would have plenty of exciting stories to share, just as she did. There would be so much to talk about from the last year!
Reuniting with her family was indeed wonderful–particularly seeing her mum, Florence, again. A cup of tea in hand, chatting with her mum, and everything felt familiar and right with the world. Her brothers had both completed apprenticeships, Richard had gone into carpentry, while her youngest brother Phil had taken an interest in bricklaying. The family’s main topic of conversation was the boys’ search for work. Once she caught up on the latest happenings, however, it seemed there wasn’t much new to talk about—Florence’s letters had already filled her in on most things.
Eager to reconnect with her friends, Trish planned a visit to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. The moment she stepped off the bus near the hospital gates, a lump formed in her throat and a wave of nostalgia left her feeling a bit emotional. She had spent more than half her adult life living at Alder Hey. It seemed like a lifetime ago now, but she remembered it so clearly. The decision to accept a position in the Alder Hey nurses’ training had been an impulsive decision when she was just 17, sparked by a desire to escape a boring factory job, but now nursing had become her life. Her fellow nurses were her second family.
As she walked the hallway of the residence, pausing at the doors of the different rooms she had called home over the years, memories flooded back of antics with her classmates and later, colleagues. She remembered the exhilaration of passing exams, of getting promotions, the lows of difficult shifts and tragic cases, and the friendships she had been part of there over the years.
The hospital itself was still the busy, mostly cheerful place she remembered. Peeking into the wards, it felt like she could just roll up her sleeves and get right back to work.
Reuniting with her friends was lovely at first–they all seemed so happy to see her! After initial greetings, and a few surface-level questions about her flight back to England, the conversation turned back to the day-to-day concerns in her friends’ lives, and Trish began to feel like an outsider. As she sat and listened to her friends talk about this ridiculous hospital policy, that handsome doctor, or what to do on their next night out, Trish realized how much her life had changed in just one year–and how little theirs had. It wasn’t only her circumstances that had changed; she herself had grown and experienced so much. Meanwhile, her friends seemed to be in the same place, doing the same things as before.
What surprised Trish even more was that her friends showed little interest in hearing about her adventures in Canada. Back home, still feeling a bit disheartened, she shared her thoughts with her mum. Florence suggested that perhaps her friends didn't want to confront the fact that they felt stuck in their routines. Hearing about Trish’s exciting new life might have made them reflect on their own, and maybe that was uncomfortable.
This experience, combined with the familiar routine of her time in Liverpool, made Trish think deeply about her future. She had a job waiting for her in Canada, was that what she really wanted?
Trish knew she could easily find a job in a hospital in England, but her visit to Alder Hey, while it felt like home in many ways, had only strengthened her desire to return to Canada. She wasn’t the same person she had been a year ago, back when she was already searching for something more in life. Going back to that time wasn’t an option.
Her goal in taking the job in Bella Bella had been to do hands-on nursing, and it had delivered exactly that–plus so much more. Now, the job waiting for her in Telegraph Creek offered a similar opportunity. That was what she truly wanted. Still, she hadn’t expected the emotion that had bubbled up when she walked the halls of Alder Hey again, after being away for only a year.
Trish’s friend Jean now lived in Manchester, and Trish went to stay with her for a few days. She knew talking things over with Jean would help her sort through her jumbled thoughts. Jean WOULD be interested in hearing about her life, and Trish was eager to hear more about her friend’s aspirations, too.
Jean lived in a flat in a complex that mostly housed seniors. Her flat was on the ground-level, facing into a quadrangle that was surrounded by two-story blocks of small flats. The two friends talked non-stop during their time together. Sometimes they went for drives, as they had in the days before Trish moved, other times they sat in the comfort of Jean’s flat with a cup of tea.
Although they had written frequent letters over the previous year, Trish realized what a gift it was to have the time together to really talk through the issues that were top of mind in each other’s lives. Jean didn’t want Trish to move so far away, even though she understood how enticing the opportunities in Canada were. She had her own dream—marrying a doctor and perhaps traveling abroad together as a missionary couple. The life in Canada that Trish was so excited about just wasn’t what Jean was looking for. Still, she didn’t try to talk Trish out of it, she supported her in taking this chance to use her nursing skills in a new environment, and steer her life in a new direction.
One evening, after returning from a day out, Jean decided to take a shower. It had been a warm evening, and the french doors that opened out into the common space between the buildings were ajar to let in a bit of air. Trish settled into a chair to read.
Moments after she heard the shower turn on, her attention was pulled from her book as a man quickly and quietly stepped into the room where Trish was sitting. She had not been visible through the open doors from the outside, but now the man was inside, he stared wide-eyed at her, and she at him. He had something in his hand–she glanced at it to see what it was. It was a pop can. In a second, the man gave it a shake, his thumb covering the opening, then sprayed a jet of liquid into her face. She yelled out, wiping her eyes. By the time she cleared her eyes, the man had run back out into the night, and she could hear Jean scrambling to get out of the shower.
Trish closed and locked the french doors by the time Jean emerged, dishevelled from her interrupted shower. She called the police, while Trish rinsed the sticky liquid off her face and from her hair, relieved that it wasn’t anything more noxious.
The women were rattled, and grateful that the police attended quite quickly. The intruder was long gone by the time the constables arrived; but one of the policemen said there were many opportunistic thieves in the area and reminded Jean to keep her door closed and locked. The intruder, knowing there were a lot of seniors who lived alone in the complex, probably heard the running water and thought Jean was an old woman who had forgotten to secure her door while she went in for a shower. If Trish hadn’t been there and startled him, he may have slipped into the flat, robbed Jean, and disappeared with her never knowing what happened. In the end, the ordeal, though alarming, had turned out harmless and became yet another mishap for Jean and Trish to recount during future visits.
Before her time in England ended, Trish told her family with certainty that she was returning to Canada–and this time, she planned to stay. Her mom didn’t show much reaction, seeming resigned to the news. Her brothers also didn’t seem too surprised. By then, they were young men with their own lives and concerns. The age gap between them and Trish meant they weren’t particularly close.
Her dad, however, was genuinely shocked, "But who is going to look after me when I'm old and sick?" he asked.
"Get old and sick, then call me,” Trish fired back.
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Author’s Notes
N.B.1: We often see our parents through the lens of their roles in our lives— caregivers, disciplinarians, cheerleaders. Perhaps they are our role models or mentors, but who were they before they became these things to us?"
To better understand who my parents were before they were, well, my parents, I set about interviewing them about their lives before marriage and kids. I started with my mom.
Trish Lewis was 18 years old and desperate to escape a mind-numbing administrative job at a factory in Liverpool in the 1950’s. She made the impulsive decision to join a friend to interview for nurse’s aide training at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. That decision changed the trajectory of her life and launched her into an interesting and rewarding career as a nurse.
Trish is my mom, and this is her story, as told to me in a series of interviews in 2024. The story is pieced together from Mom’s memory, photos, and documents. As we all know, memory is fallible. In the telling of this story, some names have been changed, either because they could not be recalled, or to protect the privacy of the person. The Journey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
N.B.2: If you are enjoying this story, you may also enjoy reading my memoir, “Resilience in the Rubble: A True Tale of Aid and Survival in Kashmir”. The book shares my experience as a first-time medical aid worker in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, after an earthquake devastated the region in 2005. It also tells the story of Nadeem Malik, a local teenager who lived through the earthquake, and his struggle to provide for his family in the aftermath.