When I was twenty-one, I decided to volunteer for The Samaritans.  It was something I had always wanted to do; there was a centre around the corner from my house as I was growing up and I had always been curious about it, about who called there and what happened to these people.  I also felt strangely comforted by the centre’s presence; that there was an anonymous haven nearby for people to find support if they needed it.  I didn’t know exactly what went on there, but I wanted to be one of the people providing that support if I could.

So I went along to an induction evening on one cold night in November.  I was told that there would be a six-week training course, after which it would be decided whether I was the right kind of person to speak to callers in distress.

There were twelve other people in the training group; I was the youngest person there by a mile and felt extremely self-conscious. Naively, I hadn’t realised how much it would all involve, but I embraced the training and as the weeks went by I learned about how to speak to people who were suffering.  Funnily enough, this mainly involved listening…letting people get problems off their chests and asking questions that would help them to fully explore their feelings.  Above all, we learned that we had to be completely non-judgmental, no matter what reason the person was calling for.  This presented a new angle for most of us; we hadn’t considered the possibility, for example, of a paedophile calling in.  It is taken for granted that people who are in distress are automatically deserving of time and support; to question that some may not be was strange and unfamiliar, and as such some of the trainees left at this point.

The rest of us muddled through these awkward scenarios of life, and we were frequently given questions to discuss, our trainer asking us individually how we would respond to them.  As is my way, I would answer his questions eagerly and instinctively; without really thinking the issue through properly and our trainer would always add something to my answers (“That’s good, but…”) This was the case with most of us trainees; we were learning, after all.  But there was one lady, Maggie, of whom everybody was completely in awe.  She stood out from the rest of us; there was an aura of calm and quiet confidence around her.  She was in her early sixties, and was beautiful in the way of someone who had clearly embraced life and everything it had to offer.  She listened intently to all that was said during the training, knowing instinctively how to answer any of the questions that were thrown her way during the training.  She gave us all (including our trainer) new perspectives on some of the problem scenarios we were given, and mostly I admired her ability to be caring yet completely non-judgmental in any situation; none of the rest of us were ever quite able to manage this.

We finally finished the course and on our last day we were all called in, one by one, to see our trainer and be told whether or not we had made the grade and could start taking real calls.  I was incredibly nervous…throughout the whole course I hadn’t fully answered a question and I had not been able to hide my natural disapproval of some of the scenarios we were given.  It had been a hard, emotionally draining course, making me question my tolerance, my understanding and most importantly, my values.  However I still desperately wanted to help the callers if I could, and I wondered if I would be chosen, whether I was good enough.  Maggie was also nervous, for what reason I don’t know.  I knew she would sail through, and that’s exactly what she did.

When I eventually went in to see the trainer, he sat me down and told me I had a tendency to “let my mouth run away with me…” (still true to this day) but that I had done well and they would like to accept me as a volunteer.  I was elated, and I walked home that day on a cloud.  It may sound silly, but I felt I had really achieved something worthwhile on that day.

Maggie and I went out that evening for a celebratory dinner; it turned out that we were the only people from our training group who were accepted as volunteers, and from that meal we developed a firm friendship, which grew stronger as the weeks went by and we started our first proper shifts at The Samaritans. 

The calls we took varied from the genuinely distressed to the downright obscene (the Saturday night shifts being the worst for this type of call).  However the training had stood me in good stead, and above all it was wonderful to be able to forget the things that were going on in my own life at the time and concentrate on others’ instead…people whose problems were far greater than mine.

I spent a lot of time with Maggie during this period, and the longer I spent with her, the more it felt like I had known her all my life.  Looking back, I know that I put her on a pedestal; I was recently estranged from my mother and I lived on my own, rarely seeing any of my other friends while I tried to come to terms with some of the changes that were happening in my life at that time.  I desperately needed someone around me who was all-knowing and understanding, who could show me how to make sense of things.

And at the same time Maggie was having problems with her son; her husband had died some years before and her son was angry with her for being lonely and wanting to find someone else.  We depended on one another to talk these things through; in the knowledge that the other would listen, understand and offer real support.  For a while, Maggie looked after me in a way that nobody else has ever done, and I like to think that I was there for her in return.  She often called me her “surrogate daughter” and I glowed inside whenever she did.

I should say that it wasn’t all doom and gloom…we behaved like a pair of teenagers a lot of the time, talking about anything and everything, including our crushes (I had one on a guy at work; she had one on her appointed guardian at The Samaritans).  One evening on the way back from a shift, we’d found out where the objects of our crushes lived and went for a drive past both of their houses, giggling hysterically.  We spent many evenings together with bottles of wine, philosophising and talking complete rubbish as friends do.  If I’d had a bad day at work, I’d turn up on Maggie’s doorstep and get a hot meal and a listening ear, and when Maggie had to go into hospital for an operation, I was the person she called to ask to stay with her for a few days while she recovered at home.

Eventually however, time and our situations moved on; the man I’d had a crush on at work became my husband, and Maggie also married again (although not to the man she originally liked).  Her son gradually came to terms with the new situation and gave Maggie and her new husband Simon his blessing.  She now had new grandchildren to spend time and build a relationship with.

Our connection through The Samaritans also came to an end; I left as I had taken a full-time job and was also studying so didn’t have as much free time any more (although I still hope to go back at some point). 

We stayed in touch of course; we went to each-other’s weddings and we spoke regularly over the telephone, but didn’t really meet up again as friends.  We didn’t discard one another; we always knew the other was there if needed, but we both appreciated that we had moved on to different stages of our lives.

And then last night, out of the blue, I received a phone call from Maggie’s husband Simon, telling me that she had died suddenly in hospital earlier this week. 

Grief is hard, so selfish and ridden with guilt.  I felt terrible about everything, from the fact that I hadn’t seen Maggie for over a year to my having received that telephone call in a crowded cocktail bar so I’d had to shout over all the noise.  I analysed every interaction I’d ever had with Maggie, and I kept wondering if she was looking over me and expecting me to behave in a certain way now that I knew she had died.  People always say, don’t they, that you should get on with things as normal because “it’s what he/she would have wanted”.  I don’t know about that.  If it were possible to see people’s reactions to my death, what I would want is for them to grieve properly for me.  Not forever and not unnecessarily, but it would be confirmation that my life meant something to someone.  And Maggie’s life had really meant something to me, even if it was only for a short period.  I wasn’t sure if I actually had the right to be upset; my husband was surprised at my tears as it had been such a long time since we’d had any real contact.  But then he hadn’t been around during those crucial years when Maggie’s friendship had been my saviour in so many ways, ways that I have never fully explained to anyone, not even Maggie herself.  I never fully thanked her for that brief period when we were each-other’s best friend.

I suppose the moral of all this is there are some special people who pass briefly through your life and they change its direction, and you remember them forever.  There are few people who I have met and truly admired, but Maggie was one of those.  She was a truly special person and I am glad and grateful to have known her.