The Coronation Edit…..

I would have loved for my dear mum to be with us to watch the Coronation next weekend, for it was she who instilled in us our love of a good Royal celebration. As a young nurse in London, she attended the last Coronation where she stood in the rain, waiting to be called if needed to help those who became unwell in the crowd.  I wonder if she has met our late Queen yet and told her that she prayed for her regularly? She even sent books and tapes of sermons to her, we have letters from ladies in waiting thanking her for them! She hoped that the late Queen had had time to read and listen.

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to you….

We sang this wonderful old hymn this morning at church. I have searched both Spotify and YouTube for best versions in case you don’t know it, but nothing that I found could do it justice! It needs to be sung at a moderately slow pace, as if the congregation are pulling on the reigns to stop the band from going too fast! There needs to be some sense of restraint, moments to feel the words that are being sung, focusing on who is Holy and who is being worshipped, not rushed over … incredibly moving when done properly! I have to say our band and our worship leader nailed it today! But it was the words of the second verse which struck me in a way that I hadn’t noticed before. Bear in mind that the Smarts are taking every opportunity for another right royal celebration! Can you guess?

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee, 

Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea:

I don’t think I had ever truly visualised what that could look like before.  ALL the saints casting off their own crowns to worship the King on the throne. Only one remaining wearing the crown. Wow! Not me on my throne, with my agenda, wanting my ways, wanting the worship and adoration focused on me, but me on my knees worshipping the King with my saintly brothers and sisters. 

On Friday, the anniversary of Dominic leaving us, I heard early in the morning of the passing of another dear friend who has been in my life for as long as I can remember. She was many things in her life, not least an amazing artist and teacher, but to me and my sister and each one of our children, she has been one of the most faithful prayer warriors that I have known. Only last week when I spoke to her on the phone, she assured me that even though she was increasingly held back by a failing body, she would continue to pray for each one of the children, delighted that Matt has got his dream job, (prayer answered , tick, thank you!), delighted  that we were about to celebrate Ramsay’s first Birthday and so much more, but still with the knowledge that her praying work was not quite finished. She was always so thankful to hear of her prayers being answered and very quick to give God the glory, but always so aware of so many more still to be prayed. I smile just now when I think of the welcome she will have received this weekend, not least from my mum and dad, and from Dominic and Andy my brother in law and so many more who will echo the, “Well done, My faithful servant”. She was one of the humblest people I knew, never one to put a crown on her own head. 

Do you know what Heaven will be like? Of course not, not really, but we know some things about it, and one of the things that we do know is that we will spend a lot of time praising and worshipping the King. I don’t know how that also fits with meeting our friends and our family and how we will feel when we notice that someone is not there, and how we will fit in the work that we are told we will do. And will we get to meet all the Bible saints, and all the other people across hundreds of years, who we think may be there? And your head can go round and round in circles trying to visualise it all, but the truth is we won’t know until we get there. I confessed to a friend on Friday, that often my longing for Heaven was probably more due to the thought of being reunited with those who I’ve lost, rather than being motivated by the anticipation of worshipping Christ. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has thought that, and I’m sure that God is big enough to understand what I’m feeling. 

But how does this all connect to our Coronation this week? Well, unless I’m wrong and the service has been completely changed, I understand that when Charles is crowned, everyone else takes off their crown, just for a moment. The symbolism is quite uncanny, but of course that’s where it stops, because one day King Charles will also have to take off his crown and acknowledge that there is a higher King who wears the true crown. On Saturday when you sip Champagne or eat your strawberry scone, or your Coronation chicken, or Eton mess, and spend time with friends or family, when you see the crown being placed on Charles’s head, take a minute to reflect on who the real King is, the higher King, the everlasting King. Are you laying down your own crown for Him?

You can watch the service today from Hillview Community Church Aberdeen on YouTube. 

The Floor of the Lifeboat

There have been many half-written blogs over the past six months, the next few paragraphs belong to one of them – read on and see why I’ve brought it out today. 

This week I have had the wonderful privilege of being able to travel to London to join the queue to pay respects to our late Queen. I say privilege because that is what it felt like, I am tremendously thankful to be able to take leave from work at short notice and have a straightforward journey from Aberdeen to London. I’ve been tremendously thankful for nine years now to have a daughter living in London, and although I don’t always stay with Meredith, on this occasion I did! We were both tremendously thankful to be able to get an Uber in to London in the early hours of Wednesday morning and even more tremendously thankful to find that the queue was not as far out as London Bridge where we were dropped off, in fact we didn’t join it until Blackfriars Bridge, so our wait was exactly five hours. We were so thankful that we went on Thursday rather than Friday because the timings for return flights and the length of the queue would have meant I wouldn’t have made it to Westminster Hall.  We ended up in a great group of people, a couple from the South Downs who had connections to the village of Methlick where my mum grew up on the farm 90 years ago, thankful for genuinely interesting conversation, lots of fun and laughter, sharing of food, good hearted stewards and police who jollied everyone along. And so very thankful for the three minutes spent in that great hall, the hushed procession filing past, the air weighty with palpable deep sorrow. Thankful to experience it with Meredith, to have a story to add to the story of our wider family, just like the story my 93-year-old mum has told us for years about the day she was in London for the Queen’s coronation.

Do you notice a theme?

Something that struck me about the carpet of flowers in St James’s Park was the number of comments on cards simply saying, “Thank you.” That was by far the most predominant message which was being expressed on hundreds of cards by hundreds of people.

 In previous blogs I have written about the practice of recording daily thankfulness. A dear friend gave me a diary many years ago now, long before it became trendy to do so and long before “mindfulness” hit the horizon and was officially recognised as being part of having a healthy mind. Of course, one often wants to ask, “To whom are you thankful?” but that’s another blog!

As I look back on the past six months, and reflected on my own thankfulness, I realised to my shame that I had lost the habit of being thankful. Instead, I had become anything but thankful and as I reflect on six particularly difficult months, I realise that by ignoring the practice, I had lost the very thing that had kept me going for the preceding four years because without the discipline of thinking about things to be thankful for, I very quickly started focusing on all that was lacking in my life.  I started comparing my life with everyone else, and grudgingly focused on all that I had lost, and all that I didn’t have. It became harder and harder to be with friends and I found that I often came home from spending time with them feeling angry jealous, generally grumpy and hard hearted and bitter.  I felt increasingly dissatisfied with my life, I struggled to see past all that I didn’t have, all the enormous changes which have gone on, and all the everyday trials of normal life. I had become completely focused on all that I didn’t have and blind to what I did have. …….

I didn’t complete or publish that blog because I found that simply by writing it, I had to take on the challenge of what I had become before I shared more. I did however get back into the routine of daily thankfulness, and that instantly changed the mindset in a slightly more positive way…. 

….until….

Like many of you, as I look back on my life, I can see that it has been punctuated by several specific periods of time when life really felt relentless in its challenges. By far the most significant were when as a family we left full time ministry, and then shortly after, Dominic’s diagnosis and death from cancer but there had been others before that too.  On both those journeys, however painful they were, I felt very aware that for every set back, for every painful moment whether spiritual, mental, or physical, for every time that made me sad, for every little loss or hurt, there was always something that I could find to be thankful for. Sometimes new and exciting freedom in life and in my walk with God, new or deepening relationships, new adventures, a deepening of our own relationship, the kindness of others, the faithfulness of friends, and a renewed and deepening closeness to God. It was as if God was saying “endure this trial for now but look what you are receiving in return and in the future”. So however hard things were, I was always able to have some sense of blessing, in layman’s terms good always outweighed bad, and so sometimes the challenge was simply to look for the blessing and be thankful for it and the troubles immediately receded in scale. It’s a simple formula which I had forgotten this year, and its absence was having a fairly significant effect on how I was reading life. 

But what happens when the formula doesn’t work, or when the thankfulness doesn’t come, or the difficulties seem very much bigger and more relentless than the things to be thankful for?  When you genuinely want to be thankful but just can’t summon the strength to be in that place?

I have just had a gruelling week. There has not been a day this week that something hasn’t hit me hard. Every day has brought challenges, struggles, upsets. On the grand scheme of things, not quite life and death stuff but things which have severely challenged me professionally, relationally – being a mother, a daughter, and a friend, financially, spiritually and every other “ally” which I can think of, including dog ownershipally!! My burdens have felt so heavy that I confess that my knee jerk reaction has been to grumble, to shout (very loudly, mostly at God but also at the kids, the dog, other drivers on the road – you get it!), to kick out at those dearest to me, to be both angry and sad at the same instant, frustrated and scared, to walk away from friends thinking they “haven’t a clue what I’m going through, and their lives all seem incredibly more wonderful than mine (not!).” My thankfulness formula has simply not worked. 

 I have read verses which friends have shared with me and literally thrown them away because they have left me feeling cold, and a failure and doubting of their truth.  My prayer times have turned into a series of rants at all that has gone wrong this week, and although I do believe that God listens to all our prayers, I’m quite convinced and would not have been at all surprised if He had put me on mute by Wednesday!

So, what do you do and what do I do as another new week looms ahead, and your thankful heart is just not in it, and the car isn’t working (today’s challenge) and you wake every morning wondering what’s going to get you today? How do you read the low points in life through Christian eyes and somehow keep going and honour God through it all?

Here’s how – My dear mum is dying slowly of dementia. She is a shadow of the wonderful woman she once was. She is consumed with anxiety about dying and being on her own, and yet is desperate to die and for her life to be over. She is an increasing burden to us all, especially my sister who bears the brunt of middle of the night calls. As I spoke to mum a couple of nights ago, while she was having a panic attack, I tried to get her to think of some things to be thankful for, it was really to try distracting her as much as anything, but she just couldn’t do it. And so eventually I just said, “Mum just sit still, take some deep breaths and just sit…. just sit”. She did and she was able to ask for a measure of peace, at least for a little while until the next wave of panic welled up inside her. The storm in her head and the sick feeling in her stomach won’t ever go away, but at least she was able to find rest for a short time. 

Sometimes in the thick of life’s storms, when being thankful, and reflecting on God’s faithfulness in the past and the promise of His faithfulness in the future, is just impossible, we just have to sit, sit tight, and trust Him to carry us. 

It’s like being in the rough stormy sea, and then being scooped out by the lifeboat crew and lying exhausted and worn out on the floor of the boat until you reach land.  You’re still in the storm, the waves are still crashing against you, the darkness is still all around you, but there is a boat carrying you to safety. The weather hasn’t changed, and you’re soaked to the skin, you’re still exhausted, you can’t make sense of how or why you ended up in the sea in the first place.  You might even in your confusion have resisted the arms that were held out to you to pull you on to the boat, but you know that soon you will be out of the storm, you just have to wait until the pilot and his crew get you to land. 

That’s what putting your life in God’s hands really means – that’s it at its rawest. It’s easy to be thankful when life is wonderful – when your kids are  more wonderful than any other kid that has walked the earth; when you’re on your tenth holiday of the year; when you’ve got your own private Gas and Electricity supply; when you’ve been able to retire before you even started working; when you can clearly see God’s intentions on your life and count your blessings and praise Him in thankfulness for all that He has done and will do. When you can make sense of the valleys and see why He has led you through them. That’s easy, any of us can keep a thankfulness diary then, even as I did. 

Trusting in Jesus is being able to sit and rest, helpless, when you have no power over your situation whatsoever, when you’re exhausted and your weak and there is thick fog all around you, and all you can do is sit and wait on the lifeboat floor until you reach land, when you’ll be safe and dry. And then thankfulness will return, genuine thankfulness, thankfulness for the storm, because until you’ve been in the storm, you really don’t know what it is to be thankful. 

From the storm, 

Marjorie

Is there anyone out there?

“I’ve messaged him (or her), but he’s (she) not got back to me”.

It’s amazing how frequently we use that phrase in our everyday speech. We use it when the tradesman whom we hope will fix the leak or decorate the lounge doesn’t follow up with a quote. We use it about our teenagers who go off to Uni and are too busy and otherwise occupied to reply to our incessant messages of “how are you doing?”. I use it regularly about patients who don’t reply to triage calls and econsults (take note!!).  I have also used it frequently in two other situations recently, and that’s what I want to tell you about. 

Firstly, or pre-firstly, although the blog has been silent recently, many of you have encouraged me to keep posting, but it is impossible to sustain a monologue about me or about Dominic or about grief, so although there have been lots of things that I’ve thought of to write about, I’ve pulled back as I’ve tried to consider how to move forward with it. So, this is still a bit about my journey, but hopefully might be a bit of a crossover onto something further. 

Firstly, 18 months on, and things are quite different, and that’s something to do with time and healing and to do with messages not being answered. Don’t worry, I’ve not been texting Dominic, or writing to him and I don’t often speak to him and haven’t had any sense of seeing him in the way that some people speak of.  However, what I realise now is that for most of last year, I pretty much was living with some kind of strange feeling that he was still around, and that it would never be a surprise to see him walk through the back door at the end of the day, of course he would, why wouldn’t he? That’s partly to do with the fact that we spent a lot of time apart throughout our marriage, there were a lot of conferences and speaking engagements and a few big trips overseas that I didn’t go on, there was also a lot of evenings spent apart, such is life in full time ministry, so there was a very regular sense of him always coming back, that was very normal for us, we spent a lot of time apart, but there was always a reunion. So, in some ways that probably carried on through that first year of him not being here. And we also still felt his presence was very much  in our home, not merely clothes and books and stuff, but just him being part of life, you just carry on doing all the normal things of life and then suddenly remember that he’s not part of it. But more recently, I’ve been confronted far more by the realisation, that he’s not going to get back to me, however many attempts I have at “messaging” him.  That’s a new stage, that’s just the harsh reality that that part of life (39 years of it) is over, but it’s not all harsh, there is actually relief and peace about coming to that stage, not in any way blotting out the past, but more a sense of rising up through the rubble and walking forward and I can do that because of the second situation that I want to tell you about. 

“I’ve message Him, but He’s never got back to me”.  

I’ve said this a lot about God recently. And as soon as I say that some of you will smile and say, “not surprising – doesn’t exist”, or “told you so – all a load of rubbish anyway”, or similar, not so fast!….let me explain!

Some of you know about the awful lack of student accommodation in Glasgow this year. Sadly, Matt was one of the many students who found it impossible to find a place to stay. There is a long back story which I won’t go in to but suffice to say that in the lead up to his final year starting we had literally 6 weeks of constant daily attempts to find accommodation, some of which became very close to fulfilment, all of which came to nothing. We literally were in the position of being at the day before classes started and still having nothing for him. And then something came up at the very last minute, which meant he was able to go to Glasgow but within 24 hours of being there, it became apparent that that wasn’t going to work either and we were back to square one. I cannot over emphasize the stress that this caused Matt and his mother! And I cannot tell you how many times I “messaged” God about the whole thing and was met with a total brick wall of silence. We were constantly looking, phoning etc, but just nothing was coming up. We prayed and prayed about it, and so did so many others, but the wall of silence remained, there was just absolutely nothing from the Heavenly Father who had been so close and literally carried me through the previous 18 months.  I just simply could not see what God was doing in the situation and could not hear what He was saying to me in it.  We were taken to the edge, and over it, without any clear guidance about what we should do.  On top of this, I was facing some health worries and investigations of my own, and dear Steph was having a very difficult time in early pregnancy which meant numerous trips back and forward to the hospital, and Brian coming back from offshore at short notice to be with her.  Nothing stirs up that sense of maternal feeling than seeing your children suffer, seeing your children flounder, and your children helpless. It’s a very raw, base feeling, possibly a stronger more visceral feeling than seeing your spouse suffer if I’m honest, but that is one of the strange things about being a parent. Where was God in it all, and why was He not replying to my messages? And in all honesty, I probably also was having that unspoken conversation with Dominic along the lines of “fat lot of good you are to me now, WHAT am I meant to do?”  We always did have a very robust and honest relationship and he certainly wasn’t replying to those messages! It was exhausting and distracting, it was distressing and consuming. What had in the past (fourth year of four kids through Uni, 16^thstart of a Uni year!!) been easy as pie, and never given me a lost hour’s sleep, suddenly became this huge distressing problem, completely out of the blue, highlighting the lack of a dad  who always sorted something out and made us all realise how much we had taken for granted in the past. It was relentless. 

So where was God? Was He there? If he was a God of love, why was He bringing me so close to the edge of despair and heartache?  Why was there so much pressure and angst in my life again? And more distressingly, why could I not feel His presence in it all?  I’ll tell you…. But firstly, I realise to those of you who don’t have faith, it will sound incredulous or bizarre that I would be praying about something as simple as getting accommodation for Matt, but that’s the wonderful thing about having faith, I can bring even the very mundane seemingly ordinary things of life to Him and trust Him that He will guide and direct and provide, except this time He didn’t seem to be……

So where was He? Well, He was there all the time, but in the very darkness of despair and silence, I had to learn that ‘blind trust thing’ once again.  That even when He is silent and seemingly distant, unlike Dominic, He has not gone, in fact He is very much there and alive and listening to every message I send. And the silence didn’t mean that I wasn’t doing the right thing, that I had somehow displeased God and he had turned his back on me and Matt, that he wasn’t interested in the job, or that He was sick fed up getting my messages.   I wasn’t not praying the ‘right’ prayers, saying the right words, getting the winning combination of silence, meditation and listening – believe me, I was doing all of that and more, but I actually just had to trust, because there was absolutely nothing else I could do. I exhausted every possibility. I was completely helpless to find a solution to the problem and I just had to wait on Him, sit tight in the darkness and silence that I felt was surrounding me, and trust that something would work out. Simple. Exhausting emotionally but simple. We make faith such a difficult thing sometimes; we ask too many questions, we overanalyse, we doubt, we want stuff to work our way, we snap our fingers for answers immediately, we try to do things ourselves when we don’t see God sorting stuff, we delete God out of our contacts list so quickly when He doesn’t come up with the goods straightaway. But faith is incredibly simple, it’s as simple as every time we sit on a chair without thinking! And, unlike those who have loved us and departed from us for a short while, God has not, and will not, and He does listen to all our messages and does respond, and the longer we wait, the stronger our faith can become.  So, by all means delete the unresponsive tradesman from your list of contacts, but the very worst thing you can do is to delete God from your contact list.  Wait, and keep messaging, and keep waiting, don’t fear those grim times in your life when you feel nothing but darkness and silence around you, scary though they are, because He is in the darkness with you, and sometimes the most amazing growth happens in complete darkness, just like the little person we will welcome into our family next April, a little miracle of new life, in the dark just now, but alive and thankfully growing. Trust God to take you through the darkness and silence in your life, in whatever form that takes, we all have different experiences of it, but it is the same God who always reads his messages and will always ultimately respond.  

Haven’t posted a song for a long time – we sang this in church this morning….

Dustin Kensrue – Rejoice! (find it on YouTube – great song!)

…All our sickness all our sorrows

Jesus carried up the hill

He has walked this path before us 

He is walking with us still

Turning tragedy to triumph

Turning agony to praise

There is blessing in the battle

So take heart and be amazed…Rejoice!

Oh… you want the happy ending don’t you!  Well Matt is very happily settled for now, with the most amazing couple, who have graciously agreed to borrow him for a while!… and the thing is, they were there all the time, they have known him since he was born…we just had to be taught how to trust!

Airports and Turf

Dear Friend,

In relation to queues, what kind of person are you?

Are you the person who ambles into the airport and doesn’t really think much about what queue you are joining? You stand in the line which happens to be in front of you at the time and you comfortably wait your turn. It doesn’t put you up or down, you’ve got plenty things to look at while you wait, the speed of the queue just doesn’t bother you at all, what happens will happen, at the end of the day you will still board the plane. In fact, you might not even realise that there is a queue!

Or are you the person who sees every queue as an opportunity for strategic planning and a challenge? You will do anything you can to take control of the situation and make your time in the queue as short as possible. You will move from row to row if you can, constantly working out which is moving faster, sussing out who is wearing boots and belts to be removed and digging for stuff in their bag, all of which you think might delay your own passage through to the other side. You will do absolutely anything you can to beat that queue! This also is how you approach life. 

Or you may be the person who never queues, you always have speedy boarding and stay in the executive lounge until the very last minute when you saunter calmly up to the check in desk and within minutes and with no glitches, you are on the plane, with your bag tidied away while everyone else has barely had time to pull out their passports? Travel is an absolute doddle for you, it’s actually one of your most pleasurable experiences!

Or are you the person who groans inwardly at the sight of a queue in front of you, who immediately feels irked and a little bit annoyed because you are the person who has learned from every previous queue you have ever been in that regardless of what you do, and what queue you join, you will always end up in the queue that is going slowest. You know that every other member of your party will be at the other side before you, regardless of the fact that they may not even be in the airport yet, it just always happens that you are the one that will be in the slowest queue. The person in front of you is wearing ten belts and the zip on their boots always jam.  They have to unpack their bag in order to get their toiletries out which should have never been in the bag in first place.  You knew as soon as you joined the queue that this was going to happen to you. We call this ‘Sod’s Law’. If something bad is going to happen, it will happen to you, whether it’s the queue, the car, the duff holiday house, the overbooked hotel, whatever, you can just guarantee it. And that is pretty much how you interpret all that goes on in your life and the expletive, ‘typical!’ is often on your lips!

That is probably the longest introduction so far to my blog (not dissimilar to many of Dominic’s introductions to his sermons when his family and probably a few others would be sitting thinking, “just get on with it!!”).  You see, if I am honest, I am that fourth person in the queue. If someone is going to end up in THAT queue it will be me! In some ways that is just a little bit like how I am thinking about life just now…but more of that in a minute. 

Many of you will know that we have just passed the first anniversary of Dominic’s transfer to Glory as a friend put it! (continuing the airport theme!) It has been a strange season leading up to the day itself. There have been lots of life challenges recently which have just been a drudge and we miss him not being with us to fix things.  As a family we have really felt the loss of his wisdom in decision making keenly, he just always knew what to do about stuff!  And as the anniversary approached, I think we all felt at a bit of a loss as to know what to really feel, since our loss is no more or less than it was a year ago. However, what it did do was give us a chance as a family to take a day off our usual activities and spend time together (except poor Mer in London) and enjoy some memories and a midweek hill climb.  It also gave many of you another opportunity to express your love and support for us, and for that we are deeply thankful for your messages, cards, flowers etc which you sent.

Back to the introduction

As I begin to rebuild my own life and look at what that looks like on my own, and reflect on the past three years, I have begun to wonder if there was always going to be a bit of that ‘Sod’s Law’ thing going on.  This might help answer that question, “Why did it have to happen to him when he still had so much to give?” which many of you still ask me – as if I really know, but this is how I have begun to make sense of it all. 

I think, the journey and its end for Dominic was inevitable which means more than it just being part of God’s wonderful plan for the universe, which I believe it was. I do now believe it did have to end the way it did, (and yes, I still do believe in a God who heals), because it was the very best way for both of us to continue to discover and continue to testify to the amazing faithfulness and presence of God even in the ‘Sod’s Law’ storms of life.  The cancer itself was irrelevant, it could have been any number of other conditions which would have led us on the same journey, and in many ways I am thankful that it wasn’t any other condition, because sadly there are many which we forget about (because we get obsessed with cancer, the big C word as many of my patients call it!) which cause even more pain, debilitation, humiliation and distress and ultimately death.  It wasn’t the cancer that was the important thing, but the journey itself and how we travelled it. 

I think there was always going to be ‘that bad thing’, that ‘Sod’s Law’ (even worse than all the ‘airport queues’ we had found ourselves in previously) because it was the best way that we could discover even more about God.  I think it was through knowing God in life’s challenges and being aware of his own weaknesses and need for Him that Dominic was able to walk the last journey so bravely. He really did have a living knowledge of that God person. I think his life and character was most effective because of his own experience of knowing God, he used to say that the best way to get to know God was when He was the only person left in the sinking ship with you! Plenty of time for one to one chat then!! 

 It seems that some people have speedy boarding right through their lives, they never have to wait in the queue, and others are fairly oblivious to the queues around them and are even more oblivious to the stresses they cause. Others try to fix and control the queue, driving for straight wins, not taking any casualties and not really having much time for reflection because having got through security their mind goes straight to where to stand on the airport bus so that they can be the first on the plane.  For them, it’s all about conquering the trial triumphantly rather than allowing the trial to shape you. 

It’s not easy being that fourth type of person in the airport.  That person is all too aware of the inadequacies and weaknesses in their approach to the journey. That’s why they get irked. They are irked at the queue, but also at themselves, because although they don’t want a simple thing like a queue to get to them and spoil their journey, for some reason it does every time, and so there is always going to be an acknowledgement that they haven’t quite got that bit sorted yet, they see the challenge coming and fall at the same hurdle every time. They need to take a bit of time with a coffee to settle themselves down a bit before approaching the queue for the airport bus, aware that the same thing will likely happen again, ‘Sod’s Law’, they will end up standing next to the door at the wrong side of the bus. It’s not easy being that person because unless you are never going to leave your front door you will come across queues in almost every aspect of your life. Believe me, I’m an authority on that one!

 Life was never particularly easy for Dominic. He faced many hurdles throughout his life, those ‘Sod’s Law’ experiences, although few would have known about them, because he learned to take time to process and reflect on each one, to acknowledge his weak spots, the trigger points and move forward and change for the better, before he approached the next queue.  In fact, I think he changed from being the fourth type of person to the first because of that process. He was bullied as a child, his parents had an acrimonious divorce and he had years of separation from his father, he was devastated after failing his Cambridge entrance exams, and had to take time out of Uni with a fairly severe back injury. Latterly, he experienced the pain of rejection and misunderstanding from his colleagues in ministry, loss of status and job security (ironically, he said his job behind the Deli counter at M&S was one of his happiest!) and ultimately in some quarters his reputation was deliberately tarnished and he was excluded from some circles which he was previously part of. The cancer diagnosis came when at a time when he was fitter, healthier (!) and happier than he had been for years. Sod’s Law! However, he quite simply refused to let these individual ‘queues’ define him, his always sunny personality meant that he was never bitter about ending up in THAT queue, no matter how many ‘Sod’s Law’ experiences he endured, he humbled himself with much wit and banter and learned to discover even more about God’s grace and goodness and mercy to him. He wasn’t proud, he had gone through too many queues to be proud – he didn’t depend on his own strategies to get him through each queue, he simply leaned on God to give him all that he needed and graciously accepted his place in the queue. 

 Some of you would wonder why on earth you would want to follow a God who allows the ‘Sod’s Law’ to happen to your life. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to say to that. The huge question of why a God of love allows suffering is a major sticking point for so many people. What I would say is that God is God regardless of what we think of Him, and He doesn’t owe us anything, and yet He has given us so much, including His son and the promise of eternal life in Heaven. He does allow us to go through trials, not because He is a nasty spiteful God with some kind of perverted mind that likes to see his people suffer, but because He wants us to depend more and more on Him, He wants to refine our character and grow our love through our trials and in those trials experience his goodness.  And He walks our journey with us. 

If you are anything like me, in every ‘Sod’s Law’ situation you enter into, you usually experience a sense of exasperation and frustration, not only because of the sense of unjustness and unfairness, but also at your own inability to rise above it. That “Why does this always happen to me?” phrase won’t be far from your lips, accompanied by lots of sighing and in extreme circumstances deciding that the whole holiday will be ruined because of it! (Yes, sorry, my children can sadly testify to that one!!). But here’s the thing I am daily learning. This ‘Sod’s Law’ situation that I am in just now didn’t end by spoiling the holiday,  because it started with a humble acceptance very early on, that the journey had been chosen and tailored specifically to fit us perfectly, pushing us further than we thought we could go, making us dig deeper into our human resources and ultimately our spiritual resources than we had ever anticipated, but ultimately trusting that God never asks us to bear more than we can and that He is always with us in the ‘Sod’s Law’. It’s not the holiday destination we had planned, it’s a different one, that’s all. I don’t say that lightly. There would have been a day, and in fact there were many days, when I said that I couldn’t bear to live without Dominic, and yet here I am a year later still very much alive, and getting through life, albeit sometimes limping! What I thought was as much as I could bear, obviously wasn’t and God knew that right from the beginning. 

That has all ultimately led to an acceptance (not given grudgingly) and peace about all that has happened and the unknown of the future, that has not hitherto been seen by my family, especially not in an airport queue! Some days are hard, often when good things are happening, that’s when we miss him most, because he embraced good times so much, and part of his enjoyment was seeing others enjoying themselves. How he would have enjoyed our celebration of the Duke of Edinburgh recently, how he loved all the pomp and ceremony!  We will never forget the day that he left a conference early, much to the amusement, frustration, dismay and likely disapproval of the others at it, to come home and surprise us while our extended family got together to celebrate the Royal Wedding ten years ago.  What a party we had that day, and the thing that was way more important than any conference was that he was with his family, enjoying them enjoying something. He wasn’t that bothered about what Kate Middleton was wearing, but what did bother him was that he wanted to be there and experience our excitement and happiness, and that was very typical of him and we miss that. More men need to be husbands and fathers like that! And yes, there are times, thankfully not often, in the middle of the night when anxious thoughts get the better of me, but not for long, because I know that what I thought was my “more than I could bear” obviously wasn’t.  There is also no sense of injustice or unfairness, and believe me, with so many ‘couple’ friends that will be a constant temptation and a challenge! You could pray for me and them on that one, otherwise I am going to end up one sad lonely, bitter person! I am here, because ‘Sod’s Law’ I fell in love all those years ago with that guy who was on that particular journey, and what a journey it has been!

And just lastly, 

 The one thing that has really made this past year so much easier for me, and for some of you, this is will probably confirm that I am a completely on another planet…. or maybe it’s a planet that you just don’t understand…. and might be interested in? 

It’s this – I really do believe that Dominic is in his sweet spot. For him, there is absolutely no more ‘Sod’s Law’. What a relief that must be! I think more than any other person who I have known or listened to, he had a very special understanding of where he was going. It’s not something that a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about.  Our culture tells us to live for today and not think about what lies ahead.  Thinking too much about the “after life” causes too many unknows to open up!  When you love somebody, you want the very best for that person. I think we sometimes say that way too easily, because we live in a broken world of pain and suffering and there is never going to be that ‘very best’ on this earth. There will be lots and lots of excellent, and amazing, and wonderful, and staggeringly happy, all given to us freely by God, but there won’t be the ‘very best’ or the ‘perfect’ because that doesn’t happen until afterwards. I am genuinely happy that after a life of ‘Sod’s Law’ Dominic can now experience that ‘perfect’, and if he is experiencing that, then that is good enough for me for now!

Some of you have asked about a memorial service for Dominic. We had planned to have one around this time, but obviously with all the restrictions, we have decided not to. In some ways, the more I think about it, the better that is. There is a strange irony, that there has been no formal farewell for the man that led so many farewell services for others, but I think there is something quite unique and special about that! He has quite simply departed! 

However, I can always suggest you listen to Nimrod and reflect on a wonderful man, and a wonderful God, because if it’s fit for the Duke it’s also fit for the King’s servant! 

Fields of Rubble and Fields of Gold

As six months since Dominic’s death approaches, I felt it was time to blog! The blog was initially meant to be a means of us communicating what was going on with Dominic, and it then grew arms and legs – thank you to those who have written to encourage me to keep writing!

Well, what I can say and without meaning to be flippant is that the whole grieving experience makes for interesting times, no wonder there are so many books written about it! I certainly hadn’t anticipated all the various levels and depths of the experience. That phrase about someone being your ‘other half’ is so true. Since we had been together for 39 years, I really do feel very much that at least half, if not more than half, of me is gone, and yet that doesn’t mean I am any less of a person, or a shadow of my former self, it just means that there’s a bit of structural reshaping and realignment going on, especially in terms of identity. My mum will be relieved to know that I don’t intend going back to my 18-year-old self but sometimes it feels a bit like that. Who would I have been without Dominic in my life and how does that influence the future? If I’m honest, a lot of the time I continue to live as if there was nothing missing, and then at other times I am acutely aware that there is a great emptiness and I am me on my own. It’s a huge identity thing, when so much of your life has been intertwined with someone else’s for so long. What makes me ‘me’, Marjorie on my own, as opposed to what makes me Marjorie as a part of the Dominic/Marjorie thing. 

So, I thought I would continue with where I left off, that is, writing my story!  The disclaimer of course is that this is MY story, it is my and the family’s experience of what is happening to us. I hope that my story will continue to help and encourage others, and if it helps you reflect on how you think about  life and death, then that is great and probably not a bad thing. This is what is real for us. There are no rights or wrongs, since everyone’s story is different. It is my story. 

But firstly, generally, we as a family are doing ok. We miss him enormously; we miss his energy, we miss his happy-go-lucky confidence, we miss his wisdom, we miss his fun and his winsome attitude to others, we miss his gentleness, we miss his encouragement. We miss “Oh…it’s you!” when he came through the door, as if he never expected to see us. We miss him calling Matt “Chief”, and me “Mrs S”…and occasionally Ma’am(!), all of us girls miss the “Hello Gorgeous” when he used to collect us in the car! And when he met his friends, “Greetings Sire!” – always a bit tongue-in-cheek with that one! What we would give to hear him speak to us again! But we are so thankful for each other, and I am so thankful for the open, easy relationships we have. No topic of conversation or behaviour good or bad is banned, and that makes for easy sharing, and bolstering each other up when we need it. It also makes for fairly robust “calling each other out on things” too, (nothing new there!) and I think that keeps us all fairly grounded, level-headed and accountable to each other.

I am so thankful for those of you who have come and seen us from far and near, your creativity and imaginative ways of doing this has been constantly surprising and amazing,  and I have been brought to tears many times at the huge efforts that you have made despite Covid. Also, to those who write and send cards, again, it never ceases to amaze me that your timing is perfect…and yet why should I be amazed?! You know, it is a wonderful thing to follow the nudges and inclinations that all of us get from time to time to reach out to others. Whether you believe that that is a God thing, or just a natural human inclination, I would just say go for it. We fear pushback and rejection so much, and so often our fears stop us from reaching out. Don’t fear a push back, go that extra mile, send the card, the text, the flowers, the book or whatever. I definitely know that we wouldn’t be where we are today as a family if it were not for the love and kindness that has been shown to us by so many of you. 

I think we have found rhythms in our grief. We know what makes a day difficult, and we know what makes us sad. We know when it is good to be with people, and we know when to pull back. I am constantly amazed at the kid’s integrity and their ability to read situations and people, and to read each other. It is a wonderful gift to have, and I think this has helped them negotiate this difficult time in their lives. They know who and what is good for them, and they know to be kind to themselves. And as they have experienced loving and supportive friendships, I see them acting this out in their lives. We need more of this in the world, don’t we?!

A very common question that many people ask me is if I feel angry, or if I’ve felt angry…yet! (“Oh, you’re not at that stage yet…”) The short answer is that I don’t and haven’t done yet. I really genuinely don’t grudge Dominic being where he is. On his part, I totally believe that he is having a ball in Heaven whatever that looks like, and that he is not sitting longing to be back in our little water-logged garden to admire the late autumn Dahlias in the sunshine! I also think that he has a far superior view of the hills in the Lake District than I will ever have earth side, and I don’t think for a minute that he is wishing he was trying to make sense of the current political situation in regard to Covid.  I mean that genuinely and even though I know that he was heartbroken to leave us, in his last months we all sensed an increased desire to be in Glory. He was totally focused on where he was going, and he had genuine anticipation of it. That’s what suffering does.  So, it doesn’t take me very long to smile when I think about the big grin on his face now and to think of him being totally made up about being in Heaven. I only hope that someone tells him to calm down now and again!! He is very definitely the winner in this situation!  If anger does yet come, then I hope that some of you might remind me of that. I also don’t feel angry about being left behind, except when the garden is flooded and the boiler gives up, but any of us would feel that. I genuinely seek on a daily basis to try and make sense of why I have been left, not why he was taken, and the anticipation of all that God has planned in the future, whatever that might be, helps me cope with the disappointment of all that has been lost. 

So, some thoughts.  

Choices. One of the things which I had never anticipated was the number of choices which I would have to make. Obviously, there are lots of practical decisions and choices which we all make every day. What kind of toaster or hoover shall I buy? Should I get rid of the dog or find a dog walker? What hills would we climb in the Lake District? All of these are fairly small in the grand scheme of things, and I’ve tried not to get too bogged down by them, rather just get on and trust myself and my own intuition. Sometimes when they all come together in one day, a broken boiler, the dog generally, the dog again and again, they become overwhelming, and they just emphasise the fact that someone is not there in the equation who would normally make a decision. But by and large, and sometimes with the help of others, these choices are made fairly easily, and they are just part of living.

However, there have been more serious choices to make, to do with our grieving itself which I hadn’t expected, and they very much have shaped how we have been during this part of our journey. They are choices which we have had to make intentionally in terms of how we grieve and how well we do it. Please don’t read that as if I see it as a performance to do well or to do better than someone else. Let me explain. We have daily choices which help us increase our resilience and recovery, they help us to maintain our mental stability and help us adjust to this next part of life without Dominic. Often these are challenging choices depending on the day itself, when we have to deliberately make heart choices or head choices.  Mostly they are to do with choosing actions or thought processes which will be good for us and be positive steps in this new journey. They are to do with how we emerge off the mountain, or out of the valley depending on which metaphor you use. They are ultimately to do with living out our faith and giving God the glory. So, for instance, we have all deliberately made efforts to continue to serve and care for others and keep giving ourselves when others might not have expected us to do that, and we did that fairly early on. I’m not saying that to blow our own trumpets, as sometimes it’s been a huge effort, and emotionally costly, but generally that really has helped us to keep looking outward rather than getting bogged down thinking about how awful everything is for us. So, we might go out of our way to be with someone needier than us in a situation where we can be a practical help and likely never even mention what we are going through, or we will very often deflect the conversation deliberately away from our woes, not to push people away, or keep people at arm’s length, but to help steer us on to more positive places. I mean, really, who wants to hear the same story about themselves all the time, (ok, yes, we all know people who do, but you get my point!) I could write screeds about all the sad stuff, but at the end of the day it doesn’t change things. Where able and within restrictions, we have opened our homes again, and benefitted from spending time with others and I am so proud to see the kids doing that in their own individual ways too. For me, it’s new territory entertaining on my own, and sometimes it’s hard to do that when the one that does most of the speaking isn’t there anymore, but it’s been good to do,  and a much more positive thing than sitting feeling sorry for myself  on my own.  So, keeping busy and looking out for others is a strategy, it is a choice to make, the alternative being to take a year out of everything and spend it feeling sorry for ourselves.  It also means that we are continuing on the journey, not in denial of our circumstances, but just trying to keep a balance and keep our story in perspective.

 We have lost two dear friends to cancer since Dominic died, and three more are being treated for it: a young mum who has needed radical head and neck surgery, a GP who was diagnosed just as she retired, and another young mum going through treatment. That’s before I think of any patients whom I know who now also have a cancer story. Cancer is constantly with us this side of Heaven, always someone new starting the climb up the mountain. 

I was reminded today of that verse in the in 2^nd Corinthians 4:17:

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” When we zoom out of our present circumstances and see them in the context of God’s bigger picture, it helps give perspective on them. I’m not understating the hugeness of what we’ve experienced, but just trying to see it in perspective. 

There are times however, when we do just need to withdraw and nurse the pain a bit. There is an underlying tiredness about grief which is sapping, and robs your confidence, but generally, we are thankful for the energy to rebuild, and rebuilding is so much more pleasurable and energising than just sitting in the rubble. 

That leads on to something else. Discipline has been important. As a family we are all fairly nostalgic dreamers, we love our traditions and rituals, we love making memories, we can become quite sentimental very easily. We like repetition. However, I’ve realised that it is important to be disciplined about how much nostalgia we indulge in, especially sentimental reminiscing. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not about being in denial, it’s not about being hard hearted, but it’s getting the right balance between remembering and enjoying memories and exposing yourself to pain which can very quickly pull you back down to being overwhelmed by sadness, which results in getting stuck. A perfect example of this is a little indulgence which I have on my way to work. It’s a 30 minute drive, and an opportunity to listen to music, podcasts or some of Dominic’s talks on line, mostly music though which reminds me of happy times: concerts in London, Opera which we’ve enjoyed together, Christmas music – a huge thing in a musical family (although I haven’t attempted John Rutter yet!) – sentimental love songs, worship songs or those brilliant feel good songs we blasted out at ridiculous speeds when we borrowed fast cars! All wonderful emotive stuff. But more often than not, I can arrive in the carpark an absolute wreck, completely overwhelmed by pain and sadness and memories, accompanied by tears, swirling deeper and deeper into sorrow, often playing a track over and over again, and yet knowing that somehow or another I have to get my act together to face a working day, not just putting a brave face on, but actually having to be focused enough to get through the day safely.  So that is where discipline comes in, the practice of choosing to say, “Stop. This is doing me no good today to repeatedly play … (not going to tell you what!!)”  … and then making the choice not to.  In the crudest form, it’s a bit like self-harm, I guess. You can choose to do it or not.

Again, as before, it goes back to purposefully choosing to do or not choosing to do things that are good for us. There is, of course, the need to release the pain, but it’s an awful lot more dignified if it’s done in a more controlled way, a bit like turning a tap on and off, on the boiler to release the build-up of pressure and not to be done as some kind of sad indulgence. “I’ll just have 30 minutes of misery to remind myself of how awful everything is!” That’s also not to say that tears are wrong, and there’s not a place for them, but surely there should be a dignity in grieving, which comes from the grace that we are given to get through it. 

In contrast, the practice of thankfulness is a deliberate good choice and probably a much needed one in our current Covid world. I do think that being thankful and deliberately finding and journaling things to be thankful for each day has made me far more outward-looking than I would have been if I hadn’t done so. I can honestly say that despite all the loss, there is still so much to be thankful for and I feel so sad when I listen to others in their troubled lives who just cannot think past how bad their life is, and sadly Christians are often just as guilty of this. If your life has gone totally pear shaped, I urge you to try it. If you can only say that you are thankful for your toothbrush in the morning and your bed at night, then that’s a start, and believe me, those entries and others like them are in my journal! Again, it’s a conscious choice. 

And lastly, two interesting things. I have been fascinated by the way that new friends have come into my life and some very old friends have resurfaced during the past six months. Those particular people have had specific experiences in their lives which they have shared with me and have been uniquely appropriate for this specific time. I say that as an encouragement to you. Some friendships are only for a season, and that’s fine, but never lock the door on a friendship completely. You never know when you might be called to drop into someone’s life again in your unique way to help with a specific need. 

The other thing was something that Dominic often commented on. He always expressed sadness when he met grieving people who thought that it was impossible for life ever to be as good again after a partner had died. You can totally see what they mean, can’t you? I certainly can. You know the kind of thing… “The best is gone, I’ve had my best years, now my life will always be empty. I’ll never get over this.”   

I’ve thought a lot about that, and how that ties in with my faith and my belief in a loving God who walks with us and even carries us through the valleys to the other side. He is no less with me now, than before, and His perfect plan is no less perfect without Dominic than it was with, and He doesn’t suddenly withdraw His bountiful blessings from me and only give me a half measure for a depleted half life. Sure, the blessings are different, but the Giver isn’t. I value your prayers, if you pray, that my eyes would be continually toward the Giver and all that he gives and not all that has been taken. 

SAUDADE

SAUDADE

I found this Portuguese word on top of a pile of cards in a beautiful box of Untranslatable Words which sat on Dominic’s desk . The blurb says:  “Perfect words from other languages…..the perfect word…helps us explain ourselves to other people, and its existence quietly reassures us that a state of mind is not really rare, just rarely spoken of.”  I think he left it there for me to find! 

It is now almost seven weeks since Dominic left us, to be honest, I’m not sure if that feels like a long time or a short time….Some days have felt interminably long, others pass more quickly. At the beginning I didn’t want time to pass at all, I didn’t want to reach one day, seven days, two weeks, but the amazing things is that time just keeps going, no matter how bad or how good the day is.  If I could have repeated the worst day of my life again and again, I would have done, simply to stay in that moment, and for Dominic not to become just a memory.  Strange that we cannot grab hold of the day and just have more of that day, I had never thought about that before!

Firstly, to all of you who got in touch either by email or through the blog or by cards or coming and standing on our path (and not being able to hug us), sending flowers or gifts, or bringing meals, we want to say thank you. Your individual words and tokens of love meant so much to us, particularly in the early weeks. They brought us comfort and joy in the midst of heartache and pain and we have appreciated each one. I have been absolutely gobsmacked at some of your messages, especially those of you who have shared the impact that Dominic made on you, many of you from twenty or thirty years ago. I am incredibly humbled that you have gone to the effort of tracking us down  and taken time to share in such depth. I only wish he could read your messages.  Only this week, I received a card which was simply addressed to my name and the postcode of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary – six weeks later, it found its way onto my desk in the surgery where I work. And yet the message inside was just perfect for that day.  (Of course the down side of this is how scary it is that you can be tracked so easily, I haven’t worked in the hospital for more than twenty years, but the NHS has a big database). I do also want to publicly acknowledge my thanks to those who helped us in the last week before Dominic died, not least the medical team, who intuitively realised that we had a fairly clear idea of how we wanted things to go, and who were there for back up, but who never pushed too far. As cryptic as this sounds, I will be forever grateful for Dr. ‘Mary Poppins’, who spent the final long hours with us. She managed me, she managed the kids and she managed Dominic in a way that was a credit to her profession, she was a gift to us that night and I am so thankful to God for that. 

We had a very special farewell service for Dominic ten days after he died. The plan had always been to have a private service of cremation followed up by a church service. The latter of course was not to be, but we were able to have a slightly different farewell for him without having to worry too much about protocol etc. We all spoke, we read Bible verses, and poems, we had some  of his favourite songs and music, and despite our sadness, were able to remember many good things to celebrate about his life. I know that his heart would have been bursting with pride at the way the kids spoke about him and the impact he has had on their lives. It was a very special time.  It may be that in the future we have a memorial service, but no plans yet. 

We are all trying to pick up the pieces of our lives again with a very large gap in them. We go through the motions of work, we enjoy spending time with friends, we love the garden, we have walked for miles and miles, taking much joy in the countryside around us. We eat, we drive, we tend to our very sad and pathetic dog, we watch films, we go through photos, we remember holidays, and shared experiences. Much of this brings us joy and happiness, we can laugh and joke and tease, but all of it is done in front of a very dark grey, matt canvas which encircles our lives at present. Some days it feels suffocating, others less so, some days we clock watch until we can get to bed to tick another day off the calendar, other days go past and there is genuine focus to them and to the future. But a lot of the time, it feels like a struggle to keep looking up and out, rather than be consumed by woe and grief.  It is tiring ,and funnily enough where we struggled so much not having friends around us initially, the prospect of being with people now is a little overwhelming at times. Bear with us!

To go back to our previous hill walking theme – very often coming off the mountain is more challenging than going up. There is far less focus going downhill other than getting off the mountain and getting back to the car, job done, let’s get back home now for a hot bath and refreshment. There is a tendency to do it quickly; as an article in the Telegraph put it, “a mix of loose gravel, uneven ground, exhaustion and the physical exertion of walking downhill all combine to make the descent a more treacherous journey than the climb”.  You are much more likely to fall coming down the mountain, than going up. There is a tendency to forget how long the journey upwards was, and therefore frustration at how long there is still to go to get back to the car. And the other thing is, that if you have set off early in the day, on your way down, you inevitably pass others still on their way up, and your heart often groans for them at all that is still ahead.  These are the challenges for now. We want to walk them well. 

Just an initial  reflection abut grief and there will be more as the blogs continue. 

There is and will be a lot being said about grief  in 2020. There is already a lot of information to access generally, and I don’t need to repeat anything that has already been said. But I do want to say this, and I say it in love and I say it with the hope that it helps some of you as you come alongside others who are grieving. There are so many grieving people in our world, we cannot avoid them and no matter how hard, it is important that we all learn how to walk with them. Thankfully I have a fairly robust and resilient mindset.  (living with Dominic has taught me that!)  As a family we tend to be copers, and not take ourselves too seriously, we understand most people, we get where people come from, we can make all sorts of allowances for people as others do for us, and we are fortunate that there are six of us to grieve together in a little bubble.  Many others don’t have the same resilience, coping skills  and support  and for all you know, you might live next door to them, or you might sit in the same virtual office and they might be desperately sad and you might be the only person near them. This is not a rant, it is not a telling-off, it is just an observation and hopefully somebody reading this can be helped to make a difference in somebody’s  life because of this. 

Two things have dismayed us as a family. 

The first is the way that already friends can’t and won’t speak to us even face to face about what we are going through. We have each spent time with people recently and come back together and commented on this. It is more obvious in face to face meetings but often occurs electronically too. The conversation covers absolutely everything in the world, except Dominic and our grief.  Or often there is no conversation or comment at all. Sometimes this is excused by, “I didn’t want to upset you”, or “I’m sure you’re sick of speaking about it”, or “I don’t want to intrude”, or “I don’t know what to say”,  or “I know lots of people will be getting in touch” or sometimes it is not acknowledged at all, and there is just nothing, and I hate to say it but our Christian friends are often the worst at this and that makes me sad, because how on earth can we bring hope and comfort to the world when we don’t know what to say to people who are grieving?

So let me tell you what my responses are!   Anything that you will say out of love will not upset me.  I am upset, of course I’m upset, I’ll be upset for a very long time, but if anything is upsetting me it is the fact that I’ve lost my husband, and the kids have lost their dad, and at the moment I don’t think anything you can say, can actually upset us more than that!  And if what you are really saying is that you don’t know how to cope with us if we cry or get a little emotional, then,  get over yourself as Dominic would say.  What is a tear between friends? 

“I’m sure you’re sick of speaking about it” – no never, (and this is the second thing) I want to speak about Dominic all the time. I refuse for him to turn into Voldemort (He who must not be named!). Why would I suddenly not want to speak about him – oh it’s the whole thing about being upset, well we’ve covered that already!

“I don’t want to intrude” – I thought you were my friend doing life with me, how could that possibly be intruding?

“I don’t know what to say” – interesting especially when a physical hug often says what you want to say and the government have stopped you doing this for now – well friend, find the words, dig deep into your heart and your memory bank in your brain and express what you are feeling, not what you feel you should say, just what you actually feel and want to say, is all that you need to say, nothing profound, no big fancy words, you don’t have to quote deep stuff, just say what’s on your heart. Just say something! Is your heart so cold that you can honestly not think of anything to say?  If you can only tell me that life sucks, then tell me that, because life does suck, and at least by  saying it I know you are on the same page as me!!

Please do not be offended or hurt, if this has been you. This is not criticism and I do not hold it against you, I just simply want you to be able to walk with me or anybody else in this most awful, detestable valley of grief and loss,  more effectively and more intuitively.  Of course the danger is now, that no one will want to talk to us, so be it, but don’t waste the opportunity with the next person!!  And for those who pray – keep praying for us, in some ways we need them even more as we ponder the future, we reflect on the legacy that a wonderful man has left us and we try and make sense of the past two years.

Saudade – (Portuguese) – a bitter-sweet melancholic yearning for something beautiful that is now gone. There is pain yet also a pleasure that such loveliness once graced our lives. 

 

My Wilderness

My wilderness is painful, but lovely. 

Some part of my wilderness are covered with thorns and hurt my feet,

But I love it, and that’s why I call it “lovely pain”.

My wilderness is so hot that my tears disappear before falling on the ground.

But it is cool under Your shadows. 

My wilderness is like an endless road,

but short compared to eternity.

My wilderness is dry,

but an oasis with the Holy spirit’s rain.

My wilderness seems to be a lonely trip, but I am not alone – My beloved is on me.

Not only Him, but my faithful brothers and sisters,

I carry them all in my heart.

My wilderness is dangerous,

but safe, because I dwell between his shoulders.

So I love my wilderness,

because it takes me to the deeper part of You, Lord

and no-one can separate me from your arms for ever. 

Farshid Fathi

LEAP!

They will soar on wings as eagles;

They will run and not grow weary,

They will walk and not faint .

 

Our precious Dominic left us just  before dawn this morning. He fought until the end, reluctant to leave us, but overtaken by disease. We are all so thankful to have been with him this week, we have laughed and cried as we have said our goodbyes to him over these past days.  I feel honoured to have been the receiver of so much love from him. Our hearts are breaking, but we know that he is in Glory, his body restored and made perfect.

“Oh Aslan”, said Lucy. “Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?”  “I shall be telling you all the time,” said Aslan. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that for I am the great Bridge Builder.”

C.S.Lewis. The voyage of the Dawn Treader

Teetering!

Dear All,

This is just a brief update. I have dithered over whether it is appropriate at this time to continue our blog as I am so aware that the world has changed for us all in the past month. I am also conscious that some of you may be going through some really awful times because of COVID, and the last thing you need is to see another post from us banging on about our own situation. If that is you, then I apologise, and you should read no further!

However, many of you have got in touch to ask how we are weathering the storm, so here goes…..

I looked up the dictionary definition of “teetering” and as I suspected, it sums up where we are at on the Edge. It means wobbling, swaying back and forth, unstableness (usually on high heels!) and that certainly sums up where Dominic is at although not usually on high heels!! We had a beautiful, mad last fling trip to our beloved Lake District to celebrate my birthday in March, albeit he was only able to walk a few meters by that time, so we didn’t put on our walking boots at all but enjoyed looking at the mountains from the car!  Do you know that Dominic can stand almost anywhere in the National Park and name any of the surrounding peaks? He learned that years ago from my dad who taught him how to read the landscape and planned so many of our early walks. It is absolutely amazing the way that he can trace the horizon, the high peaks and the lower fells and valleys and ridges between and name each one. He can also remember all the walks and paths that we have taken, over 35 years, their varying routes, and the terrain.   It is one of my favourite things he can do, because it shows what an amazing memory and feel for the area and it’s beautiful hills he has.  He not only sees them he reads and knows them. Now he spends many a happy hour, still reading the maps and following the hills, seeing them in his mind but sadly never to walk them again. It is quite something.

However, since we got home, he has steadily gone downhill. He has increasing pain, especially in his back, and his broken left arm is not really functioning much at all now. We are thankful for a sling which gives him support and basically immobilises it so that it is not in the way.  His breathlessness is increasing by the day, so we hear him before we see him now! He spends most of his time in bed sleeping, and occasionally will make his way downstairs to see what is going on. Everything is a bit of an effort now, and a lot of the time doing even a simple task is too much.  The hospital bed arrived a couple of weeks ago. I laughed at our earlier reflections of where we would put it, and how strange it would be having it in the house, however when push came to shove, it wasn’t a big thing at all, a necessity in order for him to get some kind of comfortable position to sleep in. There is definitely a market for hospital “aids” in neutral beige or grey, or the even more trendy dark green– why are they all bright blue?! Of course, Matt thinks that’s a great colour because he thinks everything should be bright blue!!

We know that time is going on, and we are so thankful for every day left that we are given together. Making best use of the remaining time is the challenge we still face, when for Dominic communicating with the outside world becomes more of an effort each day, and concentration even on small tasks is demanding. Most days he tries to phone someone to catch up and encourage, and he tries to answer texts, but typing on the keyboard is a struggle with only one hand really working.

However, we still have so much to be thankful for.  We have experienced a huge sense of calmness over recent weeks, even on the days where pain has been difficult to control, there has just been a real sense of being upheld.  Due to COVID, we have Matt home from Uni, Melissa teaching from home, and Meredith arrived last weekend from London. We were grateful that she made it all the way without being turned around by the police. Even in these strange days, I feel privileged to have the kids around us, as I know that so many are isolated on their own and are unable to meet with family.  We are also very thankful that despite working in a GP surgery, so far I have been protected from COVID. I feel hugely thankful to the staff with whom I work for the efforts they have made to reduce my exposure especially in the early weeks before lockdown. We also just feel very thankful for the happy memories of a year ago, when we were celebrating Brian and Steph’s wedding. We knew at the time that we were in “extra time”, but that whole year of “extra time” has been a brilliant year!

Just a few thoughts – I was thinking today about cancer and about COVID and how different they are, and yet both causing so much pain and suffering. COVID is the new kid on the block, it is fast, furious, it is hitting out at everything it can, it is like an angry teenager who wants to cause as much mayhem as possible. Eventually it will be controlled, albeit after causing much distress and havoc. Cancer on the other hand is a much more grown up evil. It is an old hand at ruining lives, it targets its victim, it plots and begins its campaign quietly in the background, and then raises its ugly head. It is strong and resilient; it will be with us for a very long time.

As we have watched recent events, and as we reflect on our own journey, I often wonder what life would be like facing these evils without faith. The evils themselves are no different whether you have faith or not, but how you read them and react to them is very different. Over the past month I have seen first hand genuine fear in some of the most stable, “got it together” people I know, and over the past two years some of you who do not have faith have expressed your admiration of how we have walked this journey because of our faith. All I would want to say is that faith doesn’t change COVID or cancer, but faith does help you walk through the valley, it connects you to the God who will be with you through every moment of it. Even when nobody else is with you, whether in hospital, in isolation or in the dark sleepless hours of the night, He is with you. That’s what makes the difference.  As we wake tomorrow to celebrate Easter morning, how thankful we are that we can look beyond chocolate eggs.

 

Striding Edge

Dear Friends

We wanted to send out a quick update, as many of you have been getting in touch asking for one! We should say that it never ceases to amaze us how many people have been getting in touch; we love that, we feel so well supported by your messages. A common opener is “You might not remember me but……” those are always really interesting and encouraging. Mostly we do actually remember you!

So, where are we at? Well it’s February! It’s now five months since Dominic had any treatment, four since his stroke, and he is still here! We were told a couple of weeks ago that the cancer has now spread to his liver, although we knew that already because he had  turned a lovely shade of daffodil – thankfully the colouring has resolved back to winter white!! That news was really disappointing for us, since it signalled a fairly significant spread and the two weeks following were a bit of a struggle. He is increasingly breathless but still walks the dog twice a day, albeit at a slower pace, he is in pain some of the time, discomfort most of the time because of all the tumours in the lymph system, especially his back, and although his appetite is enormous (thank you steroids) and his taste is completely back, he is struggling with muscle wastage and the inevitable tiredness. That all said, the general reaction from strangers about the illness is still one of surprise because Dominic looks so well! Maybe a trained eye would spot more, and it’s easier for a man to cover up swollen ankles and feet than it is for a woman!

I was thinking today about recent weeks, and at worst we were just sitting waiting for demise, at best, trying to make best use of the time left. That sounds grim doesn’t it. The problem was we became morose and obsessed about death, both the how and when, and  it  seemed to dominate all our thinking and talking. We suddenly felt that things were about to accelerate very quickly downhill, but so far they haven’t for which we are thankful, but there was an overwhelming element of sadness and inevitability that there hasn’t been before and it was difficult to get out of that frame of mind. However, we seem to have plateaued again after the dip and are on a more even keel. At every dip as we try to lift ourselves up, we have found ourselves being surrounded by some of you who have bolstered us up, whether it’s been meal deliveries, cards, visits, lifts etc. Never underestimate the power of group kindness!

So, I have been intending to write this blog for a couple of weeks. Normally it takes an hour or two at the most, I’ve found that something has come into my head – the campsite, the waiting room, the bog, and the creative juices have flown fairly easily and quickly. It is after all, not meant to be polished prose, simply a reflection of where we are at, and a few comments. Not so this blog. I was getting a bit bogged down by that, what was the block, did I actually have anything to say beyond a quick medical update? I just simply did not know what on earth to say. In a kind of way, that is really pretty much how we feel at present. The past 21 months have taken their toll; we have had many, many highs and many lows along this path, and we have known so much love and kindness as a family – we have felt the closeness of God many, many times. But quite frankly at the moment, making neat sense of it just simply doesn’t work, it no longer fits into a grid, it very much feels that we live constantly on the edge of things going pear shaped very quickly, and yet, as we live at this edge we also enjoy many very normal days where sudden demise seems ridiculous.

Last year as we all climbed Helvellyn, we chose not to go up by the famous Striding Edge. We had our mad, unreliable dog Binkie with us, and we knew that potentially she could pull herself and one of us off the protracted narrow edge that leads to the summit with disastrous consequences! So we made the sensible choice to play safe and go round another route. In our life just now, we feel that choice to take the safe route away from the dangerous edge has been taken from us, so we have no option but to walk it. We have to live with not knowing how long this edge walk will take, and when we’ll come off it. If feels like we have doggedly accepted this for now, rather than made our own choice. For now, this seems more about endurance, rather than overwhelming positivity. I know that some of you can identify with this because it’s how you’ve lived for years, say with a severely ill child or spouse, for whom you see no progress, no hope. This is not about losing faith, it’s about where God puts you when He asks you to live with the realities of advancing cancer each day, confronted by an obviously failing body.

We do believe that there has been a great measure of preservation of life, despite the statistics and normal disease patterns. |These things are a mystery aren’t they, and if you are praying for the cancer to be taken away, please don’t stop, but also pray that Dominic can see reasons for being given extra time living on this edge and is given purpose, energy and direction to make the most of these days.  For starters, look out for some podcasts which he is hoping to release soon!

For myself and the family, pray for us as we find a balance between waiting and walking with Dominic and the fact that life goes on. Opting out of everything would seem like us giving up on life, so we make loose plans and commitments for future weeks and months, knowing that they can change at any time……but then isn’t that how we should all be living anyway?  I just also would want to reiterate that this is not like some lovely romantic film where we constantly look sentimentally into each other’s eyes and enjoy long meaningful looks, walks by the beach, deep conversation, candlelit meals, exclusive time together, nor is it like any of the exhilarating mountaineering documentaries (Path to Everest, K2, Free Solo – see Amazon Prime) where there’s 100% nail biting exhilaration but you know it works out ok! There are many days when sadly we are all still grumpy and short tempered with each other, when we are unforgiving and impatient or just plain old tired or we spend too much of our precious time browsing the internet, obliging the wrong people and clocking up crazy mileage in the car.  As an encouragement to you all, despite walking on the edge we still make wrong choices and daft decisions, then hope for more time to do better!

In closing, something that we are increasingly aware of now on this cliff edge, and have mentioned before, is the absolute need to look up and out, rather than down and in. Pray that we would continue to do so.

 

These are the words of a song we have found helpful you can find it on youTube

God, I look to You, I won’t be overwhelmed
Give me vision to see things like You do
God I look to You, You’re where my help comes from
Give me wisdom, You know just what to do

God, I look to You, I won’t be overwhelmed
Give me vision to see things like You do
God I look to You, You’re where my help comes from
Give me wisdom, You know just what to do

And I will love You, Lord, my strength (sing that out)
I will love You, Lord, my shield
I will love You, Lord, my rock forever
All my days I will love You, God

Trampling through bog!

Dear Friends

We wanted to update the blog before the end of the year – not quite the Christmas letter that we used to send out at this time, but we  know that many of you have been wondering how things have been going.  Once again we were waiting for scan results which we got today.

The good news is that from the MRI scan of Dominic’s head, there is no evidence of a brain tumour, only resolving clot from the bleed in October. This is a big relief for us, and we are really thankful for that news today as we had been kind of dreading what could show up.

This doesn’t make any difference to the “no more treatment” decision which was made after the stroke, as much because the Immunotherapy had stopped working and the cancer was spreading, but also because of the risks of further bleeding. We are pretty much finished with the hospital now and the team there who have done all they can and for whom we are grateful. No its back to the good old GPs to mop up the loose ends.! Where on earth would we be without General Practice?! (In your day to day life, do you ever give thanks for the wonderful, free provision of on the doorstep healthcare that we still have in the UK?)

Where are we at?  Sometimes it feels very much like we are walking through a bog.  The summer days on our Campsite are long gone, we are very much in another season now. Our feet are having to work hard to  move forward through heavy ground,  sometimes the sun shines on our heads and the view is great, other times it feels like the weather is closing in on us, and it is difficult to see much at all.  I think, if we are honest, this has been the most mentally and emotionally challenging part of our journey so far. Dominic’s cancer is really never very far from all of our thoughts, and it requires much more effort not to be bogged down by it. The stopping of treatment has had a huge impact on us, and as we have reflected today on things, we wondered if we had just become too comfortable where we were on the campsite and lost sight of the reality of the initial diagnosis and prognosis.

Physically he is more tired, and more breathless, but no cough so far. He has struggled with crippling cramps which have left his hands useless for hours, however, these are beginning to resolve which is good news. He has a degree of muscle weakness and atrophy from the drugs and the original neck lump is increasing in size. Other than that, mornings are good, afternoons, so so, and evenings pretty rubbish unless he has had a good two hours kip, in which case, he can party all night!

One of the biggest frustrations is not being able to drive, and that will continue for the time being. Sometimes depending on how tired he is, there are reading and writing issues, so if you get a text from him with some typos, that is probably the reason why.  He walks the dog every day, and is still doing some work from home, and still active within the house, albeit a bit slower, but well able to get out and about.

Briefly some thoughts. We live in a funny kind of existence. We realise that we are fortunate to have been given time to prepare and try and get practical things in order, many couples don’t get this, but there is a sort of surreal feeling to doing this, and it is difficult not to get bogged down with emotions. We are so thankful to have had this wonderful year as an extra year, there have been so many good times, and we have  had such a lot of joy and happiness in our family. I wish that we could say that we make every minute of every day count, but sadly we are like any other normal family, we negotiate each day as it comes, we get bogged down with details, all the little things in life that we think have to happen, and we  get ratty with each other when we are tired or confused, so you see, this is not like some romantic chick flick which would have you think that pain and sadness was somehow attractive. There is absolutely nothing nice about cancer, it is always there, it always asserts itself, like a bad back or toothache it is a commanding thing,  and yet we have been able to find so much of God’s goodness because of it.

We’ve tried from the outset not to ask Why?, but I think we struggle with why the stroke had to happen, since the cancer was progressing anyway and the treatment would have also stopped anyway,  so it has simply been an added frustration and  source of physical limitation on top of what was already happening. However, we know that it is better to ask the other  question;  “What are we going to do with this now?”, rather than get bogged down with something unanswerable.  We also can daily testify to coping much better if we continue to pour ourselves into other people’s lives rather than get self – absorbed by our own. This means, that we still see lots of people and do a lot of stuff and sometimes do too much, but that’s nothing new for us, habits of a lifetime don’t change! We would far rather be with friends than be moping around.  Apart from a very quick last trip to London at the beginning of December (probably harder for me than for Dominic in a strange way) we try not to do too much of the sentimental “last this, last that” stuff.  We know that Christmas will have poignant moments, but we are still looking forward to it very much, and we have certainly not held back on the usual Christmas preparation, this is no place to be glum!

As we’ve said before, we value you getting in touch with us. The random texts or cards that come in, an email or a message, they always come just when we need them. It has been humbling to have had so many messages from people whose lives have been touched one way or another by Dominic, and that makes a huge difference too. It is great to know that God doesn’t actually need you in the room, to make your life fruitful, and the same is true of your lives. We rely on our church family hugely, and have experienced so much of God’s love through them, there constant care and practical help is quite amazing.

As you think of us this Christmas, give thanks with us, for this very special year. Continue to pray for our kids, who have full lives and yet carry impending sadness. A few practical things to pray for – pray that we would manage time and energy, that we would know when to pull back, that we would not be reckless or wasteful with the time we have. I am so thankful for the daily support from my colleagues at work, pray that I would know when to alter that daily routine. Pray that I would learn to love driving! We have been shockingly traditional when it comes to that, since Dominic would happily spend all day driving, pray that I would just accept that role reversal humbly!! Pray that Dominic would also accept that role reversal humbly!!! Pray that he would avoid all the winter bugs which I bring home from work each day and that despite the progression of the cancer, he would be protected from anything that would suddenly make things worse. And while we never stop asking for the big miracle, pray that we would continue to see little miracles in each day, and have thankful hearts for them.

There is so much about Christmas time which is joyful.  We are constantly amazed that when we look for things to be joyful over, we find them, and often we don’t have to look far, sometimes they just arrive as unannounced guests, and its usually when we choose to look upwards and outwards rather than down and in. We wish that you too, in whatever situation you find yourself, can also find joy! Happy Christmas!