Aberdeen - Highlands

My grandfather was from Aberdeenshire, born 1886. He departed Liverpool Jan. 2, 1906 arriving in St. John’s New Brunswick.  From there he went to Minetonas where he married his first wife Jessie Jack Marr. He was listed as a ‘farm labourer’ at 20 and went on to be a rancher, logger, with 2 boys from his first wife an more from his second wife. He was a respected man who became the Reeve of the community.  I don’t believe he drank. He was certainly against getting inebriated. I don’t even know his faith though I believe he was Chritian. The Hay Clan has been Roman Catholic, Episcopalian and Presbyterian over the years. My mother’s family was Baptist.  I have drunk in over 24 years and have studied theology in addition to being a physician, psychiatrist, addiction medicine specialist, having done 2 years of Community Medicine and written a lot of papers and a couple of books.  Despite 3 marriages and an okay sperm test I didn’t have children but am now an uncle, a great uncle and a godfather. My present ‘girlfriend’ a grandmother has been my friend for 24 years, longer than the collective marriages together.  I chose to come to Scotland to celebrate my 70’s birthday and as a reward for the hard work through Covid lockdowns.  

I’d been to the lowlands of Scotland before but never to the highlands and wanted to go to where my father came from and visit the Hay Clan Centre at Delgatie Castle and see the Slains Castles.  We’ve done all that.  

I’ve prayed and meditated each day. I’m sought God’s direction. After last winter when the work was so much despair and I was likely depressed like most with the constant fear mongering, disinformation and the horrendous government and media irresponsibility, I was thankful for this trip. I felt my ship was grounded and the trip and plan for the trip were my way of ‘kedging’ off that shoal.   

I feel like returning to work. There comes a time when that happens on holidays. That’s the renewal point. I also feel I can work another year.  I’ve been seriously asking myself if it was time to retire and considering driving about the country for 3 months in my camper and writing.  I have three books I want to finish.  Now I’m ready to continue work and writing.  I don’t have any great desire to do more than camp and be outdoors. 

Tomorrow we leave for Oxford where I changed the course of my life with the inspiration to return to university. I had left university and was training as a dancer and actor and wanted to be a script writer. At Oxford we visited a friend a young Quaker medical student who let us stay in her rooms, took us to church with her and invited us to have tea with her friends and discuss ‘stuff’.  It was lofty and spiritual and inspiring and I remember feeling I wanted this.  A lot of the folk we’d met that year bicycling across Europe had been university grads and I’d spent the year reading all the author’s listed on the ‘Everyman collection’ getting a real grounding in world literature and ideas.  I felt now the university had more to teach me and that I wanted more intellectually than being a ‘dancer’ and ‘actor’ offered at that time.  

Now 50 years later I’m going to go to Magdalene College and revisit that spot where an epiphany for me occurred.  I’ve taught medical school and psychiatry residency now. I’ve study sciences , arts and attendant countless conferences of higher education, been officially an ‘Assistant Professor” and a “Clinical Lecturer’ and been the guest speaker and international conferences, an expert witness to the Supreme Court and had my ideas presented to Parliament.  I’ve met the greatest of men, my mentors, two of who have been given the Order of Canada now.  It’s been a journey.’

I might die tomorrow or live another 30 years.  I felt directionless, like I was treading water. Now I feel that my purpose is restored and that I have meaning as a doctor but need to fine tune the vision.  

All the while I’m on this personal journey the world is on the brink of WWIII, Russia having invaded Ukraine.