We knew they would be sad. There again, who was I to think so? Believing myself so important that would be the reaction?
It wasn’t just to do with me either – indeed, it was more about my wife and quite rightly too for she has done more than I. But maybe there’s something in the ‘sum of the parts’ and all that. And with the third person in our life too, as Jane said at her ordination (that’s God, by the way – not Daisy, although our canine companion has played a significant pastoral part).
A couple of Sundays ago, having reached our decision several months earlier and supported by a handful of people who had kept it confidential and steadfastly prayed, Jane and I stood together in the church. Service over. Notices done. Jane had said it would be like taking a funeral – where one is holding one’s own emotions and holding the emotions of all those who were gathered. We knew they would be sad.
And then we stood together outside. The response to the announcement that Jane was retiring early and we would be leaving was overwhelming.
All human reaction to hearing sad news was there. A couple of people hugged and held, sobbing. Several wiped away tears. Others couldn’t speak. Some spoke of ‘a bombshell’. Most talked of how they would miss us.
Many affirmed us in the decision we’d made and recognized how difficult it must have been to reach it (which it was) and to announce it (which it was).
It was a tsunami of emotions and the waves kept going for the next few days.
There have been several occasions in my life where I have been on the receiving end of people’s reactions and emotions en masse – our wedding and when receiving a MBE to name just two. Special times of joy and celebration. Days when the happiness of others was a gift of immense love.
And this most recent occasion was just as special. For that was a time when people’s reactions and emotions came from the very depth of their heart and the tears from other losses.
Their sadness was an unexpected gift of immense love.
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Details of my books can be found at richardfrostauthor.com.