Dr. Livingstone and I

Firstly allow me to declare my subjective interest in Dr. David Livingstone.

The first school that I attended in Harare was named after him.  My father was a big fan and had a number of books about the man in his library.  I always felt that he was a man whom I would have liked to have met.  Explorer, eccentric, linguist, somewhat obsessed with exploration and the discovery of the source of the Nile, brave, educated and much more.  Oh yes and not a very good husband or father since he was an obsessive traveler who did far more than go for weekend rambles over the moors.  I always wished that I could have the courage to do even a hundredth of what he achieved. 

Clearly I am not an impartial reader of any biography or history book that deals with him and his explorations.  The decades since I attended junior school have made me less enamored of some aspects of his personality.  I feel that Mary Moffat,  his wife, must have wondered on more than one occasion why she had ever married him.  Men, and women, who decide to become explorers are, in my opinion, brave but rather selfish.  They head off into the wild blue yonder and expect family and friends to get on with their lives without asking very much, if anything, from them.  Cook, Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Lawrence, Stark, Kingsley et al are all people who were driven by their very personal desires to be the first at finding something of geographical, and thereby political, significance or by being the first person from their nation to explore a certain region of the world.  Exciting to read about but I image that being a spouse would have been rather hellish.  Most wives and husbands like to know where their partners are in the course of a day so imagine waving farewell and not hearing any news about your husband/daughter/wife/sister for the next nine months or longer.  Of course now if you do not check in with what's app or call or change your status on Facebook you are declared lost and presumed dead within three hours! 

But back to Dr. Livingstone. 

The man came from a poor family.  He worked in a mill as a child, taught himself Latin whilst working as a weaver and attended a short school day after his fourteen hour shifts were over.  No mean feat and certainly not the sort of environment where one could expect a child to start saving, learning and eventually attend medical school.  The rest of his life followed that pattern.  Once he decided to do something he set about it with determination.  Exploring south and central Africa occupied most of his adult life.  He found that he liked the people amongst whom he traveled and indeed to this day he is still one of the few Europeans whose name is respected by the descendants of those who knew him.  Being a missionary became less important to him over the years but the ending of the slave trade remained one of his goals. 

So a poor boy became one of the world's great explorers and continues to be respected. 

Which is where the I in the title of this post comes in.

This week I happened to be stopped in the main street in order to allow a funeral procession to leave a church.  As I sat waiting for the cars to go past I reflected on funerals, life, mortality and who on earth would come to my funeral.  Livingstone's body is buried in Westminster Abbey, his heart was buried beneath a tree in the village where he dead.  I always rather liked that idea.  Body back to the nation where a fuss could be made over the death of one of Britain's great men.  Heart in the soil of Africa where he had spent so many years of his adult life. 

I doubt that the child David Livingstone ever considered for a moment that he would die in a remote village in Africa.  It would be extraordinary if he had looked at a map of Africa and pointed to the region where Zambia is today, and exclaimed, "There shall lie my heart!"  His parents must have been stunned enough by having a son who became a doctor let alone one who became an internationally famous explorer.  Livingstone's death was not unexpected in that explorers often meet their end through disease.  He was weak, he was old, he had pushed himself far beyond his limits and had continued his work up to the end.

If there had been a funeral cortege in the place where he had spent so much time it would have, I imagine, been long with people from many tribes and regions attending.  The funeral at the Abbey had a large congregation and Queen Victoria sent a wreath, which was buried with him. 

Among the funerals I have attended no important public figure has ever sent a wreath.  No one has found a resting place that is visited by many thousands every year.  Not a single funeral has been followed by the deceased being voted a great person in the history of the nation.  Yet each funeral has been about the loss to those who loved, liked, cared for, worked with the deceased.  Each life celebrated at the funeral has been an important life.  A life in which an individual has struggled with their own issues and their own disappointments, has found joy, love and laughter, companionship and successes as well as failures and their departure has left a gap in the lives of others.  No child starts out on their life journey planning to be a failure or a great success.  We all started off with potential and a great many of us started off with the care and love of families. 

As we grow older perhaps it is healthy to remind ourselves that although our lives have not been entered into the pages of a history book we have, in some small way, been a part of history.  History is lived. It is not something that happens to other people.  It happens to all of us.  We all have momentous moments of which we have been a part.  The first black President of the USA being sworn in and watching that take place, a moon walk, landing on Mars, a nation winning a World Cup in some sport, the human genome being deciphered, the iPhone, the cell phone and so on.  Every vote we have made has become a part of history.  What we buy, where we shop, what we ask for, what we demand all have an impact on the world around us. 

As I watched the funeral procession go pass I stopped asking myself who would attend my funeral. Instead I hoped that I had, in some small way, imparted a sense of worth, of curiosity and possibilities, of caring to those amongst whom I have, and do, live.  Because at the end of a life it is not about where you are buried, who attends the funeral, who brings flowers to the grave.  It is about the living and how well you did it amongst those who travelled with you. 

So Dr. Livingstone is an imperfect hero but I like his tenacity.  I find myself respecting his determination to continue his work even in the most awful of circumstances.  He was brave.  He was stubborn.  His personal life was not perfect but I think his family were proud of him.  And most of all he stayed true to himself.  He was indeed a great man.