Missing you

So the twins moved out. 

Some, although very definitely not ALL of their gear has gone with them.

Just like a beach during one of those especially low tides at Easter, parts of their bedrooms were exposed that hadn’t seen the light of day in months.

It stimulated in me a primitive urge to clean.  One that I am normally able to overcome. 

But perhaps cleaning would make me feel better.

Faced with the carpet under their beds, the hoover gave an asthmatic wheeze and demanded to be emptied.

It also became obvious that many of the shampoos/skin scrubs and cleansing products which STILL jostled for position on the bathroom shelf never were going to be used again, and could now be recycled.

But just as I had my sleeves rolled up and a black bag gaping, I heard a key in the door.

Perran was home.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve got a couple of days’ holiday and we haven’t got wi-fi connected yet.”

I think our central heating may have been an added attraction.

Although obviously I have been telling everybody that it was just that he missed me so much!

However, it’s the weekend and he’s gone again now, and I’m on my way upstairs once more to attack the ‘dust bunnies’ under his bed.

Actually, I’ve just had a good look at them – make that ‘dust rhinos’.

Making it better with sparrows

At the weekend a terrible accident on the M5 made my drive to my parents in Cornwall take 8 hours.  It is lovely to see my parents, but each time there are new challenges brought on by old age.  I was tired when I got back on Monday night.

I spent Tuesday doing my half term marking.

Then Wednesday my lovely friend Angela came to say goodbye before going with her husband to live in Scotland.

Wednesday night we drove to Northumberland, ready for Nigel’s Dad’s funeral the next day.   We arrived back Thursday night. 

And did I mention? - the twins had spent the week when not at work or funerals, gathering their gear in order to leave home and move into a rented flat at the weekend.

So by Friday, I may very well have been depressed and knackered. 

Actually I was mainly stunned.

But as I say, I might have been in a bad way.

Divining this, Caroline asked me if I’d like to go looking for tree sparrows. 

I had never seen a tree sparrow before.

We set off.

The gravel workings had been expanded, which made it difficult to figure out where we were on our elderly OS map.

But we saw a muntjac, and on the gravel pits shovellers, gadwall and a mass of herons.

Then finally, in a hedge, seven beautiful fluffed-up tree sparrows.

The only thing better than the sparrows was Caroline taking me to see them.

Thank you for a good thing in a bad week, Caroline.

The Very Last Gift

My friend Carole Heselton writes:

“Perhaps the death of a parent is the last gift they give us.  It’s a chance to reflect on what we ourselves have become and to see the life of our parent led in its entirety, rather than a work in progress.”

Years ago, I heard the advice of the mystic John O’ Donohue that we must grow to know our own death and to befriend it, but I did not quite know what he meant.

Over the last ten days, my father-in-law Maurice has died slowly and comparatively peacefully after a long illness.  There has been time for his children and grandchildren to travel to his bedside and say farewell. 

There is deep sorrow for his parting, but gladness at an end to his suffering.

For a long time, as he was incapacitated by Parkinson’s disease, his successful career and his energetic charity work have seemed to lie in the unreachable past.

However, now is the time to get all these accomplishments out and admire them once more.

But at this time of stock-taking, I can see that Maurice’s greatest achievement is not his deeds in themselves, but that there are people who will want to recall them – people who loved him while he was alive and will miss him now he is gone.

In seeing this, it helps me to know more of the kind of death I would wish for myself and should work towards.

Thank you Maurice.