Another postcard from the land of grief

Same place.

Same view.

Six months apart.

Worlds of difference.

Another postcard from the land of grief

Occasionally in this new land of mine,  I catch sight of the suitcases I used to use when travelling. They are far more than I shall ever need for one, and I look wistfully at a sunhat perched on top of them which no-one will ever wear again. These are bags for those who travel, not for those who stay.

There are other bags, though, which I have packed many times in these past five months. I pack them in a hurry, like a character in a film storming out of their life and heading for the airport.  I pack them as if I have had enough of living in this strange place called grief and I would like to go home, thank you very much.  This experiment in living alone has been interesting, and on some days I have survived it better than I thought possible.  However, enough is enough, and now it is time to go back to being married, just like I have been for the past 30 years.  I crave the easy familiarity of routines honed over the years and a companionship so deep as to be instinctive.

Thoughts trailing like a stray sleeve caught in the suitcase lid, I head for the border of this land and demand to be let through.  Sadly, I cannot pass.  The border is sealed, the guards are impervious, and my ticket was non-returnable and one way.  I live here now.  Bag tucked under my arm, I head disconsolately back, and stow it away for next time.

This is a process which is likely to repeat many times, I think – like a dog running time and time again at a high fence before realising it cannot be jumped.  However, as with every trip away from home – it looks slightly different each time you return.  Each time I come back from the border with that suitcase, ready to stash it away, I see the house just a little differently.  I move things around, I update old things, I act like I am intending to stay here.  Like a person with no passport, I start to think how I can make a life here rather than pining for there.

Family are a huge help – constant in their love, and unchanged from the way they were.  They live here, as well as there, it turns out.  Friends are a blessing – kind, patient, standing by but never pushing in.  The value of my faith is incalculable – lending light to the darker days and hope to the deeper valleys.  Even if I did not choose to live here, there are ways to make it work and people who are willing to help.

Not ready to pack those ‘go-bags’ away quite yet – but maybe one day.

Another postcard from the land of grief

To live in this foreign land and yet still try to sing the song of faith is not a new thing. People of faith were doing it as far back as the 6th Century BC when exiles on the bank of the River Tigris tried to remember their spiritual home even though it cost them dear. In Psalm 137, harps hung on a tree and captors smirking at them, they tried to summon up a faith all but quashed by their circumstances.

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Today, before a congregation of Christians drawn from every tradition in Newbury, I sought to do the same thing:

As most of you will know, my wife, Fiona, died in November last year.  For the past seven years she had been battling cancer – with multiple surgeries and repeated rounds of chemotherapy.  On at least two occasions during that time, bad news was delivered at Easter. On both occasions, it was on a Maundy Thursday.

Last year was no exception.  On Maundy Thursday her oncologist finally told us that there was no more which could be done.  All curative options had been exhausted.  Fiona was handed over to the care of the local Sue Ryder palliative care team – who would see her through to the end.

The next day was Good Friday – and we were both here, along with all of you.  After the service, we joined in the walk through town to the Methodist Church.  When we got there, Fiona had to sit on the wall for the short service in the open air, as she was too weak to stand.  This was to be an Easter like no other…and our last together.

Two days later, I left the house shortly before 7 for the Easter sunrise service. Fiona was really needing her sleep at that time, so I closed the front door very quietly behind me . That was when it struck me with a kind of searing clarity: next year, she will be up before I am at Easter.

There it is – in all its simplicity and depth. What we sing about, what we proclaim in our churches…all comes down to this. Do we believe that those who die in Christ are raised to life?  I do, and it makes it possible to live in a miasma of constant sadness but with an unshakeable hope. I shall celebrate this Easter without her, but not without hope…and on Sunday morning, she will be up before I am.

Another postcard from the land of grief 

This week it has been snowing in the land where I now live. Snow has a soothing effect on the landscape – like a cool cloth on a fevered brow. Sharp corners are rounded, bare trees are frosted, dropped litter and chewed up verges are hidden by a kind of physical amnesia. Every one of the millions of snowflakes is an emissary in this campaign of transformation.  As they fall, drift and settle – between them they contrive to hide what was seen.

New memories and experiences fall in similar fashion upon this landscape of grief. Each one is tiny, and incapable of making the slightest difference on its own. The corners are too sharp, the hollows too deep, the cracks too wide.  Between them, though – they begin to transform a landscape. Sometimes now it is possible to look over it and see a little beauty where before there were scars. Sometimes the sun creates more brightness than shadows across it.

Like the snow, though, the transformation can be temporary. Snow does not fill the pothole in the road or round the sharp corner of the roof – it only makes it look that way. With the melt the new becomes old again and the quest for transformation resumes. What I am finding, though, is that even a temporary transformation can be welcome. To see beauty instead of scars, or to see softness instead of hard edges is a sign of hope even when it is ephemeral. The land of grief, like any other land, has seasons…

Ginny teaching a lesson in how to gaze in wonder as the snow falls…

Another postcard from the land of grief

In another land or another context, you might expect the 100 day milestone to mark 100 days of the new adventure. In this one, it is quite simply 100 days without her. 100 sunrises, 100 sunsets, 100 unmade cups of tea.

The truth below, written by the Apostle Paul, and etched here on a rather more tasteful Valentine’s gift from years gone by, remains.

Another postcard from the land of grief

Sometimes, when living abroad, even the things you did not really like about the old country take on a rosy glow which they never had before.Scented with a whiff of nostalgia, they become better than they ever were.

To be honest, I never really liked Valentine’s Day. The choice of cards for a man to give to a woman are frequently daft or rude, and the gifts are overpriced or silly. I shall probably always regret that the last Valentine’s gift I bought was a fridge magnet saying “I love you, even though you steal the duvet”. I would gladly have it stolen 1000 times over right now! In short, I am not looking forward to Valentine’s Day 2018.

For now, I shall simply be grateful to God for the companionship he has provided in this season of turbulent adjustment – described so eloquently in the two images below.

Another postcard from the land of grief

Sometimes when living far from home, people will take a little soil from the ‘old country’ with them. In the new and unfamiliar place, there is then always a connection with the old beneath their feet.

This morning I stood on a windswept slope in West Berkshire, overlooking Watership Down. As the snow blew all around, I laid the ashes of my very best friend to rest. As seasons come and go and the cherry tree planted there begins to flower, she will be especially remembered. It is a ‘thin’ place – standing in the new but not far from the old. I’ve a feeling that Ginny and I will often be found there – her quivering with excitement at the scents on the breeze, and me grateful for all the years I had.

On this occasion, nobody else’s words would do, so I wrote my own tribute:

You are the crest on a breaking wave

You are the kite wheeling in a golden sky

You are the scrunch of stones washed by the sea

You are the last and hardest steps to see the mountain view

You are the wisdom in the eyes of our sons

You are the courage in their hearts

You are the meter which stops the poem from seeping into prose

You are the note which stands a between dissonance and harmony

You are a chord within my heart, now playing only half a tune

You are the pause , the breath taken before a foolish response

You are the rich depth of Autumn

The promise of Spring

The Summer joy of a perfect sky

The welcome nip of a Winter’s day

You are half of me, and I am half of you

You are, forever, my bravest and best

Another postcard from the land of grief

If you are going to stay in a foreign land, then the chances are that before too long you will have to work. The time will come when you have to swap ‘just arrived’ or ‘settling in’ status for ‘one of us’. Today, that day has come for me.

Accompanied by my new companion, I shall head into work and see whether the mantle of ‘Baptist Minister’ still fits about my shoulders. Around me, I have an invisible army of people praying for me. Before me, I have a crowd of lovely people who are ready to welcome me, and within me I have something else – a calling.

Some 26 years ago, on the day that I was ordained, the preacher picked up on an obscure text from the Old Testament story of Gideon. Gideon was an unlikely hero who found himself thrust into the limelight to lead a small army to a great victory. The text said the following:

The spirit of the Lord clothed himself with Gideon and blew upon the trumpet.

God had a tune to be played, and a trumpet on which to play it, but the missing piece was a man like Gideon – fearful, unsure and unsteady, but with enough puff to do the job.

In truth, I do not know until I try whether I have ‘enough puff to do the job’ – but today, I pick up the trumpet.

After work is done, companion Ginny will be happy to sit and watch some TV together…

Another postcard from the land of grief

Sometimes when living in a strange land you find yourself drawn to others who also never expected to be here. Like you, they are out of context and looking for anchors in this alien place. Ten days ago, I met just such a stranger.

Ginny was born in Ireland in 2016, and for some reason found herself without a home. Rounded up and brought across to a small village in West Berkshire, she came into the tender care of the Dog’s Trust. It was there that she and I met each other. As a lurcher, she doesn’t really have a voice – but her silence spoke to mine. Looking for another breed entirely, I found myself drawn so powerfully to her. Maybe there was a sadness or a wisdom reflected in those amber eyes, or maybe I just fell for the tasseled ears. Either way, I was smitten.

After careful checks by the Dog’s Trust, and some trial walks, she has now come to live here with me. These two characters, thrust out of context by circumstances they did not choose, are pooling their resources to forge a new context. She is a little nervous, and I have a lot to learn – but the partnership has so much to offer.

Watch this space…

Another postcard from the land of grief

Yesterday was a good day – infused with the zesty scent of new possibilities and a whole string of new stories to be published. Yesterday was a bad day – stalked by the dank smell of melancholy. Yesterday was a good day – meeting with people who matter in all sorts of ways. Yesterday was a bad day – with fears about tomorrow playing some ghastly version of hide-and-seek amongst the realities of today. Yesterday, like most days in this foreign land, was exhausting.

It is easy to forget that simply living ‘abroad’ in a place where language and culture and norms do not come naturally, is tiring. Unwittingly, you are engaged in a constant battle to adjust, as if spending your day on a balance ball. Years ago now, I spent a year living abroad and speaking a foreign language nearly all the time. For the first few months, even the very business of living was exhausting. The years have not changed that.

Hopefully, the intervening years have taught me that fatigue cannot be charged, like a bull at a red rag. Nor can it be ignored, like some distant smoke alarm which seems like somebody else’s problem. Instead, it must be accommodated, like a creeper growing round the lamppost or a tree growing away from the immovable fence. This, too, is an adjustment – but hopefully it will pay dividends when said tree flourishes.