A Day of Reflection

The UK National Day of Reflection took place yesterday, 3 March. The day is an opportunity to remember our loved ones who've died, support people who've been bereaved and to look forward with hope for a brighter future.

There's a wide range of organisations that support with grief and bereavement – click here for details.

When The Queen passed away back in 2022, and perhaps again when the world lost its friend Matthew Perry last year, I think many of us understood what it was like to grieve for someone we had never actually met. Both of those deaths certainly hit me harder than I’d have anticipated.

We fear loss and change, perhaps we also fear growing old ourselves and we feel empathy towards those left behind in sadness.

I felt similarly back in January when I heard that a fellow female in Scottish agriculture had passed away. I had only met this lovely lady in person once but had ‘met’ her a number of times on Zoom. She was a participant in the Be Your Best Self programme which I was facilitating at the time, unknowing of the fact that she was ill, I remember admiring her academic prowess and how she, like many, combined her job with all that being a farmer’s wife entails, as well as bringing up two young children.

Scottish agriculture has lost a wonderful ambassador and a family has lost its daughter, wife and mummy. I hope that, whilst she may not have been a farmer herself, the industry pays tribute to this amazing lady.  

Too often, whether scientists, salespeople, farmers, bookkeepers or soup makers, the women in agriculture are overlooked in life and in death, and that needs to change.

Personally, upon hearing of this lady’s death, I felt profound sadness for her and her family but I also felt immense personal gratitude, on behalf of myself and my children, that I am still here and that they still have their mum.

I hope that around the country both men and women are appreciating what they have. Work is important. Most of us need the income it affords.  But please, if you can, and if you don’t already, take a moment today to sit back and appreciate all those things in your life that are more important than work - while you still can.

Anna