With the recent series of heatwaves, many have compared these times with the Summer of 1976. For me, though, I remember that for very different reasons.
As a typical, at times grumpy, teenager, I awoke one Sunday morning at around 1.30am noticing the figure of my Dad standing in the bedroom doorway. ‘What does he want?’ I thought. And turned over and went back to sleep. Six hours later, he reappeared at my bedside: ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Your Mum’s had a heart attack.’
Knowing her to be in hospital, I replied: ‘What’s her condition?’
‘I’m afraid she’s passed away.’
In the years since I have wondered how my Dad managed the hours between the police ringing the doorbell, phoning the hospital to be told, and then telling me.
50 years on, it’s a day one never forgets. I also remember the single bell ringing at the local church calling people to worship. ‘It’s like a ***** tolling bell.’ I said. A phone call with my sister followed and my grandparents were told too – the loss of their second child coming just three years after the death of their only other one. The funeral followed five days later. Another unforgettable day. From the shock of the hearse to the birdsong as we emerged from the church.
The 8th August never passes totally unnoticed, although some are less noticeable than others. Today, though, will be very different and need a visit to her grave. Time to stand there. Time to talk to her – yes, I still do that.
With Jane’s retirement, and after 11 years of living in vicarages, I wanted to be able to be back in our own home before this 50th anniversary. In the preparation for the move, which happened in the last couple of days, I came across a birthday card sent by Mum to my Dad. I don’t ever remember seeing it before nor how it came in to my possession (although it was probably via my sister). But clearly my Dad had kept it – maybe it was the last one she had sent him just three weeks before, I don’t know. On the front is a picture of a hard-working man deservedly putting his feet up – to which my Mum jokes ‘No kidding!’
Seeing my Mum’s handwriting was in itself moving but then it was what else she wrote that got me: ‘I’m working just as hard to get well.’
I know I would have been a very different person had my Mum not died when she did. I’ve written elsewhere about how health and disability are like a golden thread running through my life. It all started with Mum, whose sudden death led to my own experience of depression and anxiety for many years. A career focussed on those who experience such conditions and supporting family members with their own significant health concerns also. While there is much I’d rather hadn’t taken place, I would not have had it any different in many ways.
The words ‘I’m working just as hard to get well’ speak of the sense of failure, self-blame and frustration of many who live with disabilities and health conditions. As if it was somehow their fault – or someone else’s. Like many, my Mum vented her frustration at not being able to do the things she wanted to and how people didn’t understand or would stare at her in a wheelchair.
And yet there are also people for whom their health condition is an important and valued part of who they are. Those who have adapted life to accommodate it. Those who have accepted it. Those who get frustrated by people who think they should be healed!
I’m reminded again of the story of Bartimaeus, a blind man who on encountering Jesus was asked, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’
As each of us looks back on the years that have passed, we can also look forward to the future.
What do you want Jesus to do for you?
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