PrintJOURNAL 43
6 October, 2015
My darling,
Quite some time ago in one of my earlier letters I mentioned that my memory concerning the day that you went to be with Jesus had rather large gaps in it. I was feeling increasingly stressed about those omissions. It wasn’t until I talked with Karen that she filled in a number of important areas.
I’ve sometimes wondered if maybe those segments of memory loss were a gift. Perhaps my mind and my body just knew that I couldn’t take on board any further stress. Certainly our children saw it that way.
Yet even as I write that observation I feel guilty and selfish because you were the one who suffered that day, more than any of us could know.
Strangely, in the last week or so, I have had the opposite experience. By that I mean that I have had a couple of episodes in which I have suddenly, without warning, vividly remembered a scene from the last days beginning with your admission to High Care.
I was up near the reception area on Tuesday and suddenly that first scene of your admission was before me in living colour. I was unpacking your small case and putting your few belongings in the bedside drawer while two of the staff were assisting you in the bathroom. Two things happened that brought me undone.
The first was that I heard you crying. But not the tears of an adult. I heard a little girl crying. A helpless, vulnerable little girl. And my heart broke.
The second part of that experience followed immediately. Having unpacked your case, I looked around to see where I could put it out of the way until you came home. Then suddenly it hit me like that proverbial ton of bricks. “Bev’s not coming home. I will take the empty case home because Bev won’t be needing it again”.
The one thought that saved me from a complete collapse was this, “Bev won’t be coming home because she’s going home”.
Yes, I think I can understand the wisdom of being protected from too many gut-wrenching scenarios like the one above. But, in the nature of things both mortal and perishable, there is pain and heartache until we reach our heavenly home.
But Until Then
You remain the love of my life
Mike
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