March 29th always brings back memories of 22 years ago, when Sam and I got in the car and drove away from our old home in Reigate for the last time, to drive north. I remember driving up Reigate Hill taking photographs, saying goodbye to our home of 11 years, taking this massive step to relocate to the Midlands. Martin had already started his job at Leicester Royal Infirmary. Our new home in Loughborough was double the size, big enough for us all to grow into – though Becca had to stay behind with friends to finish her GCSE’s. The kids were 14 and 17, we were in our 40’s and intent on joining a church that had started in Loughborough University among students – they were all 20 somethings and we were the mother and father figure they had been praying for: exciting days!
So began that whole new life and a long, detailed story as we grew to fill the big space we’d been given with our teenagers, young people, work, travel and a houseful of people – a life we had to leave behind in January 2015 after Sam’s death, aged 27. It was perfect timing actually – by then we had out-shrunk the 6-bedroom house and the oh-so familiar small town, packed full of reminders which had become too much to bear. We’d already found a flat in Leicester near Martin’s work, which became our new home. Everything I’d been involved with – typified by another anniversary that falls 14 years ago today, a prayer event called Mothers’ Cry, which drew together nationwide connections I’d nurtured, younger generation believers I’d mothered and the prayer for God’s mercy in our nation – was finished. Our 5 year journey with Sam (more here)was finished. I was finished.
Even I can pick up the note of mourning in my words. Anniversaries aren’t meant to be sad, are they? Just markers, like the memorial stones set up by the Israelites to commemorate victories and boundaries. They were called Ebeneezer stones, which means This far has the Lord helped us (l Samuel 7v12) Look how far we’ve travelled, by the grace of God! Yet – there does have to be mourning for a time that is over – it is a loss. Endings are the birth places of new beginnings.
Last weekend we had the opportunity to revisit our old life: we were invited to a surprise 40th birthday party for one of the Open Heaven 20 somethings we met in 2001. It struck me that she and her contemporaries were all born in the year we were married – it’s our ruby wedding anniversary in September. What a marker of the generations, and what a joy to meet dear young friends we’d known for 20 years, who’d seen us through so much. They reminded me of how we were when we moved there. They remember our 20 year renewal of vows in Loughborough parish church, rather like family. There was comfort in the reminder.
There is one more March 29th memory. It was the date in 2019 that Teresa May set for Brexit to happen – the first of the dates that didn’t happen! But we all aimed for it as if it would. Our particular response was to have a gathering in our Breton home, inviting all our neighbours and friends to a We’re not leaving party! The women sat round drinking English tea, the men had apéros of beer and fizz! I was given a small banner that said Welcome to your Breizh-sit (Breizh is Breton for Brittany). We are committed to the land and people God has given us in mainland Europe, our French foothold, and will continue to make the journey from the heart of England to Finistére, ‘comme tous commence’ in the opposite spirit to Brexit isolationism and despite the restrictions of the past few years.
3 years on from that and Covid has wrought havoc with our plans and hearts. We have been going to Brittany to open up the house every Easter-time since 2007 when we bought it: not being able to go has been very hard, being cut off from our Breton home. I was determined it would happen this year and booked the ferries… but have had to alter them 3 times and now finally move it back to May due to family illness, lack of kitten vaccines (so the cattery can’t take them) and Covid coming to our house. Just goes to show there is no ‘used to’ and ‘always’ anymore – every plan must be made carefully and prayerfully, not out of presumption or entitlement or the fact that facebook ‘On this day’ shows me we were there 7, 6, 5 and 3 years ago!
Anyone who knows me will tell you I remember a lot of dates. Maybe I am trying to order my history, document it to give it meaning, trying to wring every drop out of it. We certainly do live life to the full – it’s easy to move on and forget what has just happened! These last few years have been so much quieter, home-based, a time of reflection, a time of change. Yes, of course I have ‘lockdown photo albums’ and hundreds of shots of the kittens: we all want to hold on, to have souvenirs. But I learned a painful lesson a few years ago when my old computer and back-up disc were stolen from the house when we were away. That Mac was too old to connect to iCloud and all my photos from 2009-2015 went with it. Seeing I have albums from the time of my birth that leaves a big hole in my record – actually covering the years of Sam’s illness and death. But I had just written No More Looking Back (click here), a poem about Sam, about what I was saying yesterday, wanting to move on. It was as if I was being tested on it: STOP looking back then! And – your life is worth just as much UNdocumented!
Looking back isn’t very fruitful, once the lessons have been learned. The best part of it is seeing the grace of God at work in our little lives, in the way things pan out. But then I have to turn to face the unknown future, as we all do, carrying with us what is still of value for the journey and jettisoning things that are not – or having them pruned off by a wise gardener who knows the seasons!
More on gardening tomorrow.
Heart Space 