Saturday, December 12, 2009

In the midst of life ...

I had a text message when I switched on my phone first thing from the husband of the mother in hospital to tell me that she'd died at two in the morning, seven and a half days since I first went to see them.

We went out shopping for kitchens to have installed in our house, ready for when we retire, and then took off for Bristol to see Amanda and her son James, who has recently chipped his elbow and is in plaster.

While we were there, my mobile phone rang. It was Pidgeons the funeral directors, checking out the possibility of a funeral date, the day before Christmas Eve. A husband's grief expressed in practicalities, before he crashes with exhaustion. I doubt if he's slept much this past week, needing to live every moment with his soul mate, in case it proved to be her last.

So much love, so much pain, which God alone can assuage.

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