Beauty surrounds us, but we usually need to be walking in a garden to know it - Rumi
Snow lay on the ground outside the Hospice that evening although it was very warm inside. Her husband holding her hand felt the grip lessen as she slipped away. Her sister was with him although the rest of the family had just left for home. “She is at peace now,” she said. And so she is.
Jay has fought a long and hard battle with cancer for a number of years so this day was not entirely unexpected. She had a loving family, husband and three daughters and her mother. I cannot begin to imagine how mother must have felt watching her child suffer and die as she did. No one expects their child to predecease them. I suppose Mary must have experienced the same anguish as she stood by the Cross on which her Son died. There were good times as well, of course; the birth of her grandson Charlie a year or so back, for example. She was able to spend this Christmas with him and all the family. Charlie had been told to be careful not to tread on “Grandma’s tail” - the tube leading from the oxygen bottle to her mask and so he carefully stepped over it each time. She went into the Hospice a few days into the New Year giving her mother a hug and a kiss before she went. Her passing will leave a gaping hole in the family life but they are strong and with God’s help will cope, I am sure. Jay, as her sister said, is at peace now, no more fear, no more suffering or painful operations, no more long and tiring journeys to the specialist hospital in London that was treating her. Now she may rest in God’s peace and may God be with her family to guide and support them all in the years to come.
3 Comments
Steve Givens
18/1/2016 02:41:38 pm
A beautiful reflection of life, suffering, death and friendship. Thank for sharing something so personal.
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Peter Swannell
18/1/2016 09:08:30 pm
What a lovely moment to share with your friends, thank you.
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Kathleen
26/1/2016 12:33:28 am
A beautiful and all too familiar reminder of the preciousness of life and those we love. A beautiful reminder of the life that awaits each of us when our weary souls head home. God bless you Peter! God bless Jay and her family. Kathleen
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AuthorI am an Authorised Local Preacher in an Anglo Catholic parish church, in the Diocese of Essex UK Archives
February 2022
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