Three years on...

Three years ago I sat with my dad in hospital in Stoke, convinced he would be home the next day. He was weak, frail and in pain from a broken hip, but all he wanted to do was be back in his chair near his garden and in his sanctuary. Although he seemed so frail I couldn't believe he wouldn't go back to Stockton Brook, it never occurred to me it was our last day together. As he began to hallucinate and his temperature climb, I still thought drugs would sort it. As plans were made to take him to intensive care I assumed it was the best place to get him through and on his way home. As the consultant asked if we wanted him to be resuscitated I thought he was going through formalities. I had the meal planned and what I would do when he was back in his chair and how I would do anything to make him happy. But he didn't go home. He died strapped to a horrible machine that violently forced air into his congested lungs. The room was windowless, dark and sterile, my father loved light and life. But he still died with great dignity and surrounded by such love. There isn't a day when I don't wish with every fibre I could have this last day again. God bless you dad. You passed on your last piece of wisdom - how to die.

Tale of Two Women

I know two old ladies, both are in their 80s.  The first was a nurse and in her early twenties she met a man she fell deeply in love with.  She said she was crazy about him and couldn't believe it was possible to feel so strongly about anything or anyone.  She was head over heels.   As a devout Anglican she wanted her fiancee to share her faith before they married.  He tried very hard to please her.  He accompanied her to church every Sunday.  He wrote to the bishop of the area where he lived to ask if he could discuss Christianity and marriage but was turned down and told to go to the local vicar.  He did so but found a dry, unenthusiastic cleric who had little time for him, and he could not find a message he could take to heart.

This honourable man told my friend he could not become a Christian but would come to church with her every week and always support her and would help her bring up their children as Christians - perhaps one day it would make more sense to him.  Deeply upset she went to her own vicar who told her that it was wrong to marry outside her faith and quoted 2 Corinthians: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?  Or what fellowship can light have with darknesss?  My friend went home and the next day finished the relationship with the love of her life.  She told me that she cried herself to sleep every single night for a year.  The young man went onto marry someone else and when they had their first child, a boy, he wrote saying they had named him George, the name my friend and he had chosen if they were ever to have sons.  This was too much and she asked him never to contact her again as the pain was too great.  He never did.

It was not until she was 62 that my lovely friend met her husband, a delightful, gentle widower who went to the same church.  He walked her home one morning after a service and a few months later they married.  They had 15 happy years together before he died after a long and debilitating illness.  Of course they never had children together.  The lack of a family is a source of deep sorrow to this day, and from knowing her as I do I would say she would have made a wonderful mother.

We have talked about this quite a lot.  I asked her if she thought the advice from all those years ago was right.  She lowered her head and sighed.  No, she said, I think the advice I was given was wrong.  When I asked why she said that for all her married life, although she was devoted to her husband, she had felt guilty.  Why?  Because she often still dreamt about her first love and never had the heart to tell her husband.  I loved him, she said, he was a very good man and a wonderful husband, but nothing could ever compare to the passion I felt all those years ago.  I must be a terrible person, she said, because I could never confess what I really felt and dreamt about.


The second old lady is Catholic and had a child 60 years ago.  The baby had a congenital problem and died 6 weeks after birth.  A letter of condolence from a devout Catholic aunt said how sorry she was to hear about the loss of the baby but how fortunate it was the little girl was baptised in hospital before passing away, because, "it could have been so much worse."

By this I think the well-meaning aunt was referring to the teaching about limbo.  As Catholic teaching tells us only the baptised can see God, then a baby who is unbaptised can not be fully in heaven.  This is an ancient belief, not official doctrine, and the idea today is that you can believe it if you wish, but you don't have to.  Back then it was much more accepted that babies went into some kind of holding place until God decided to admit them.  I think I am grossly simplifying, but as far as I can remember that is the idea and what I was taught at school. Whatever, it is a cruel theology, quite bizarre and extremely hurtful for those who are suffering terrible grief.

Two women, two Christian denominations, two sad stories.  I don't quite know what to say about them, they seem so heartless and ridiculous.  Faith should bring love, hope and comfort and not blight people's lives with joyless dogma that heaps burning coals onto already painful wounds.  Would it happen today I wonder?

My dad

Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.  (John Muir)

This is my lovely dad who died on March 20th 2013.  He was a GP who lived all his life in Stoke-on-Trent.  He was compassionate, gentle and committed to doing the right thing all his life.  I learned so much from him about the power of everyday goodness and being true to your promises, no matter what the personal cost.  He suffered for 30 years from rheumatoid arthritis - a cruel, disabling disease, which robbed him of so much enjoyment, particularly in retirement.

He started me on my path of discovery about the world by taking me to the Peak District and explaining that the green fields and valleys were only recent, that millions of years ago this was an ocean filled with extraordinary shellfish and strange creatures that no longer exist.  We broke open a piece of limestone and there was a perfect fossil of a shell. I remember very clearly the awe and wonder that left me spellbound - still does.

He spent his last years dedicating himself to caring for my mother who developed dementia.  His devotion to her was awesome and humbling.  He was so tired and exhausted from caring he could not fight pneumonia and he died in hospital.  I shall miss his wonderful humour, wise words and constant support.  To sit with him as he died was one of the most terrible but transforming experiences of my life. I love him more than words can say and miss him every single day.  A truly good, gentle, intelligent man has left the earth.

He loved his garden and the birdsong which filled the air in spring.  For his funeral I put together this recording of the birds in his garden with Lark Ascending.



Here is the script I wrote last June for Pause for Thought on Radio 2, which I dedicated to him:


Pause for Thought - Father's Day June 2012

When I sat down to write this Pause For Thought for Father’s Day I decided to say what I’d learned from my dad. But it wasn’t that simple. How to swim? No, that was my friend’s dad. To play chess? Yes a bit, but I remember he quite quickly got bored of that! In fact my dad wasn’t very hands-on in that way, not like my husband is with our children now – it was different in the 60s and 70s. I do remember he worked long hours and read the paper an awful lot. But I did learn something from him that I value above all other things –to appreciate the ordinary. This is what he did, and still does, day in and day out – he takes the ordinary things of life and transforms them by bestowing on them dignity and respect. That could be the washing up or meeting someone in the street, it could be going for a walk or going to a funeral – it doesn’t matter, because my dad taught me that life is made up of the ordinary things, not the extraordinary, it is made up of the humdrum, not the rare and impressive. Something American entrepreneur Jim Rohn also believes - Success, he wrote, is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. And success doesn’t necessarily mean becoming rich and famous – it means being contented and at peace with the world around you, knowing you are living your life in the here and now and to the best of your ability.
Jesus valued the ordinary – he really did. His friends and followers were ordinary, the parties he went to and the meals he shared were ordinary, he travelled in an ordinary way – but by living his life extraordinarily well he transformed everything around him. Indeed Christians believe he transformed the world.
Thank you dad for your advice and for living it too – have an extraordinarily happy Father’s Day.

The Sealed Box

A beautiful poem written by my 12 year old (13 next month, how did that happen) about the death of granny's dog. Dougal was bitten by a tick and got Lyme's disease poor thing, only 5.

THE SEALED BOX

The sealed box, never to be opened,
Made and carved with pristine wood,
Even dust won’t abolish its beauty,
Sitting there, in peace,

Trotting, running, sprinting,
Diving, curving, round trees into ponds,
For nothing more than what you hurl,
The naive mind, all of us,

But the day, time, place, bite,
Led to jab, flame,
After loss of legs,
Into black marking, painful dust,

Meaning…

The sealed box, never to be let out,
Made and carved with pristine wood,
Even dust won’t abolish his beauty,
Sitting there at peace.

Bereavement - A Reflection

Here is the youtube link to the Bereavement programme that won a Merit award - and 2 golds.  If you think it could help anyone please send it on.  It is presented and written by Peter Hobbs and is a beautiful and moving reflection on loss.  Its about 6 mins long.