“Till we meet, till we meet,
Till we meet at Jesus’ feet;
Till we meet, till we meet,
God be with you till we meet again.”If only I could be so certain. If only we today had that rock-solid belief that we would in fact “meet on that beautiful shore” and be together with those who have left us. The old-time religion that never doubted for an instant, how I long for it.
Today marks one year, the worst year of my life I have to say — without, I hope, any self-pity. It is a simple fact.
I asked Don what he wanted to do today: come home with me and spend the day quietly together, probably pretty gloomy and down, or stay at the nursing home, where there would at least be people milling about and we could push the grief thing out of our minds some of the time. He didn’t hesitate. “I want to come home.”
Good. Because sometimes (quite often, actually) you don’t want to get away from the grief. Especially at the beginning. This is a poem written by someone whose little son died at 5 months:
I don’t WANT
To do anything
To make me better.
I like it down here.
I don’t want to climb out
And leave him behind.
So we came home and I read some cards and emails that people had sent, and also read some of the cards we received a year ago that we couldn’t quite bear to read just then, and then I played some music (Till we meet again, Through the love of God our Saviour all will be well, and Where is my wandering boy tonight) – and then we had lunch and then watched a comedy I taped (One Foot in the Grave, if you must know, and yes, I know it is corny stuff) and Sunday’s Insiders programme that he had missed. And then we did some of the crossword and then the taxi was there to take him back, and he said he was very tired and ready to go back.
Thank you friends for remembering, and for your emails and phone calls and cards and flowers and faithful prayers. Last year Ross’s dearest friend said to me in a strained, breaking voice, “I didn’t know there could be such pain in the world.” Exactly. And I think of our dear, beloved son every single day, still with pain. But it does help, to know that we are surrounded by such love and care, by those whose hearts are breaking with us.
Barclay prays gently for “those we have loved and lost awhile“. Comforting, that. So I am not sure and certain, in the way that our forefathers were, but I want to believe, and I do half-believe.
Oh dear! I hope I don’t have all my readers in floods of tears by now … I’m just writing as I feel.
Thanks Ruthie for the flowers:
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