The significance of Elderly and Young influences in my life
- bronwyntutty
- Aug 2, 2025
- 8 min read
I’ve been feeling VERY F A R from home (New Zealand). My parents are aging and ailing. My nieces and nephews (in NZ and Australia) are getting older. My aunt, to whom I was really close, passed away recently; and as time goes on I contemplate life and the meaning of it more and more.
The time difference between New Zealand and the UK is an issue. Currently I'm calling mum every Monday evening at 8pm which is mums 7am on the following day. It’s the time when we can all connect and my son can have a small window of a relationship with his grand parents (whom he's met a total of 3-5 times, mum visited twice without dad). I’m so delighted that this 30 minute call has been established as a habit now. Prior to this, we’d gone through years of going from daily texts, strained conversations (generally because my son couldn’t really handle the video call nor were we engaging him properly), family WhatsApp group chats, occasional emails, check-ins every time something of significance was happening before fixing on this precious half hour as our connection solution.
This new mode is working a treat. We’ve dropped the expectation of feeling like we need to be ‘plugged into’ everything that’s happening AND more importantly I've given myself permission to be here in my life, to prioritise that by doing the things that make my life here richer.
And a MASSIVE POINT I want to make here is that before we arrived at the 30-minute Monday call as an answer, mentally, energetically and spiritually my (lack of) connection with home was one of the many ways I was spreading my energy so thin and it just didn’t feel great. I was either just about keeping in touch or else guilting myself over how much more I wish I was in touch and it didn’t always feel great.
But here’s the interesting part, I didn’t realise that at the time. I was simply on auto-pilot. In part due to the work I’ve done with a therapist I’m realising that for a long time I’ve acted in ways that are a fight/flight/freeze response. That ‘I had better’ make that phone call, that if I didn’t follow up on XYZ that it must mean that I don’t care and so on. It doesn’t make me a heartless bitch (by not being in daily contact with home or exiting a WhatsApp group). And actually, it turns out that our regular check in each week is actually enough. In fact, I know it's a whole lot more than what a lot of people have and the times when we connect are meaningful. We now all get something positive out of our calls.
The importance of mindful movement
Over the past year I set the deliberate intention to get in front of more groups of people and to share the joy of movement via the silent disco headsets, fun dress up gears and my BronChat over the microphone. The feedback I'd been consistently getting was that it was really valuable and folk were feeling so much better for having done these sessions. The movement felt great, the singing was so much fun and just being in a shared space with other people who were doing the ‘same mad thing as me’ felt so good.
I probably led mindful and fun movement sessions with around 1500 people between May-November 2024. Loads, right? All those eyes I've looked in, all those smiles I've witnessed, all those tears shared, and all the love, laughter, and life flooding the shared space. Very special.
In leading the sessions, I’ve been consistently reminded of times shared with my grandparents back in NZ. Whenever I'd return home from an overseas ‘new-to-me home’ my grandparents were always top of the list for visits, sleepovers, back and foot rubs, shared meals or Nana’s home baked apple slice. Best not forget those games of Scrabble and rummy. Nourishing times. I miss them.
I volunteered by being involved in the weekly Coffee & Chat sessions with Social justice organisation Communify QLD between 2009 - 2012 whilst living in Brisbane, Australia. I missed my grandparents and have actually always enjoyed volunteering. I coupled that volunteering role with an IT contracted role in the organisation. Each Thursday Mish or Georgina and I would drive in the bus to collect a load of elderly folk and bring them back to the Community Centre for a Coffee & chat. Oh my lord, memories of those days bring me so much joy. Seeing the elderly and young in a room together soaking up each other’s energy is the stuff I live for. It's so special, powerful and rich.
This year (2024) I got invited to run sessions with several elderly groups
It took me right back to times spent with my grandparents and to my various volunteering gigs over the years. It has been lovely, rewarding and like proper heart-healing medicine - helping me to feel closer and more connected to home and my late grandparents.
Alongside the utter joy I was experiencing in these spaces, I started to notice a sense of sadness rising in me. This ever-present reality that my family are far away, my parents are ageing and ailing and that my son and I don’t have the kinds of relationships with home that I thought we would have. This reality brought a heavy sense of sadness.
I’ve also come to this place of deep acceptance that ‘this is how it is’, and to be grateful for what I have and for all the wonderful ways that life has and is working out. This type of self-chat unleashes a tidal wave of love and trust in me that things are just as they need to be and actually how great it is that I've created all these connections over the years and that I continue to create them to this day.
I’ve felt sad for how my son doesn’t get to be in the same room as my parents or around the table eating one of mum’s famous roasts, or looking at me with a knowing inner laugh when dad says one of his BRILLIANT one liners (OMG, let me tell you, there’s an entire library of content in that topic!), or watching my son play with his cousins while I stalk them from a distance. There are so many things I've felt sad about over the years.
But here’s where it gets good, really good.
There are so many things that have been great over the years we have spent in Scotland; if I were at home in NZ we may not have experienced a smidgen of the joy we’ve experienced here in the past decade (I'll never really know, but I have a hunch).
The past 10 years, the distance, the solo-parenting, the constant juggle and shuffling of life, the absolute exhaustion, the hyper-highs and the rock bottom lows have been potent ingredients for beautiful relationships and conversations. For the deep stuff to flourish, creating something entirely new (in a different country, with all that that brings), peeling back the layers and getting really deliberate about the kind of person I want to be, the choices I get to make as a single parent and about the kind of life we get to live. We’re really, really lucky.
When I moved to Burntisland in 2017 as a newly single mum with a three-year old son in tow I knew with total certainty that we were going to build a great life, that this was the start of something really significant and that I was going to gather the most beautiful hand-selected family. I felt that we were going to be part of something so special that I'd thank my lucky stars we landed here. It’s always been a saying of mine that I want to be invited into peoples homes and to feel a part of their families, and that I would offer the same. That pretty much sums up how we live our life.
One of the early pals we made on the very street we moved to (we were no. 8 and my pal was/is at number 24). I’m talking about Bob. He's an absolute diamond, and I've got so much time and love for him. Shortly after moving to Burntisland we became friends, regularly checking in on each other and sharing a laugh. We’d have the most amazing conversations and laughter was/is always in the room. I definitely had this sense that I was getting a need met that I missed by not having my own grandparents around. We’d share the occasional meal. Bob would load my son up on treats when passing our house and we’d have a gorgeous time with their dog Barney. I moved away from no. 8 when the pandemic hit and I lost contact with Bob in the process. It didn’t feel great but life was just like that, and our time and energies were called elsewhere for a few years.
Right at the same time recently that I was feeling this welling up of sadness and distance from home, I made the decision to reconnect with Bob. It’s been the most wonderful thing. A weekly visit, a cuppa or two, a biscuit or a slice and loads of chat. I drop Bob off the occasional meal and we phone each other to check up on important life events. It's so flipping gorgeous and special to me. I’ve started taking my son along too. Bob also has a dog and thankfully the connection between canine and child works. It makes me so, so happy.
Don’t just wait - act
And so the point I want to make here is that I've taken something that doesn’t feel great, where sadness has been stirred in me; and I’ve taken action to do something about it in a way that works for all.
I recently listened to a Mel Robbins episode that shared something on this very topic. Basically, if you want something in your life, stop waiting for it to happen, and instead look at what action you can take to change it T O D A Y N O W. Then you can look back on your day/week/year/life and know that you showed up and did your best with what life gave you and that you put what you needed to into the relationships in your life to make them better, because they matter.
I not only make a priority of nurturing relationships 1-2-1, I do this alongside bringing my various friends and communities together. And as I said at the start of this blog, I set out a long time ago to hand-pick an entire family and a supporting village of people around us. And this isn’t only great for me, but my son gets to benefit from all of that too. All those relationships. Conversations. Ages. Stages. Dynamics. It’s so flipping rich.
If you’re still with me, I'd love to know or for you to at least stop and ponder over this question: what is the significance or role of elderly and young influences in your life?
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Thank you for your time today and regardless of your age, stage or the dynamics you have in your life; I see you and I'm so grateful our paths have crossed.
x Bron
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