Dynamics change.

For most of our marriage there were two main people in our lives, myself and Alicia , - and I usually took the lead. God was there, but almost always as a guest, a sort of onlooker, albeit an onlooker both approving and ready to become involved in whatever way I and Alicia wanted.

Now that Alicia has died, and her spirit is with God, all that has changed, and I must learn to live with the consequences of that change.

Where once I led the way and, in many respects, Alicia was content to follow behind - now it is Alicia who leads and, in the years ahead, I must follow because she is leading me home to God. The God who made us both, not just for each other, but for Himself also.

Now God is Alicia‘s‘ senior partner,’ - and I am very much the junior!

' Remembering Alicia' is up!

It's my first post of 2011, and in my book it proves I'm a genius! Not the worlds fastest genius, ( it did take me nearly a week to work out how to get the photo's into it without them ending up in all the wrong places,) but nonetheless my illustrated piece ' Remembering Alicia,' is now up on her blog at http://alicia-cox.blogspot.com/

It's all about how we first met.

In future anything I write about her will go onto that blog with everything else I want to post about her,and I'll simply put a note of it onto this blog.

This photo of her beside Gortinty Lake in Co. Leitrim in Ireland was taken in 1982 when we were living there.

Going to Harvington.

Weather permitting, ( and it had better permit!) I'm going to Harvington Hall near Birmingham in England, where Alicia and I lived and worked between 1985 and 1993, to inter her ash's in the little churchyard beside the Hall. I'm really grateful to the parish priest, Monsignor Moran, and the parishioners for allowing Alicia's ash's and, ultimately, my own to be interred there. It really means an awful lot to both of us. I'll hopefully put up a fuller post when I get back to Ireland.

In Manchester

I've been in Manchester for a few days with my sister, and had a great time. No piccy's I'm afraid but I got to two concerts one in the M.E.N Centre, the other in Bridgewater Hall. Both very different but both very enjoyable. The one in the M.E.N. centre was a Classical Spectacular with the full Halle orchestra and the full Leeds Festival Choir. It really was spectacular!! Think ' Last night at the Proms' add in revolving spotlights,gunfire, cannons and fireworks for the finale of the 1812 Overture followed by more gunfire and fireworks and 8000 people on their feet with flags and singing Land of Hope and Glory and you have some idea of what it was like. Makes one proud to be British!

The other concert in the Bridgewater Hall was a more sedate affair. An ensemble group in eighteenth century costume playing Handel, Mozart, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Just the sort of concert Alicia would enjoy!

I had to come back to Ireland a day early because the weather was turning for the worst and thank God I did. The Irish Midlands became really bad the following day. Next week, on the 8th of December I'm back in England again to inter Alicia's ash's in the churchyard at Harvington. More perhaps when I get back from that!

A portrait of Alicia.

I've put this portrait which I've just painted onto Alicia's own personal blog, www.alicia-cox.blogspot.com but I'm putting it up here just for the record as well.... and because I'm inordinately pleased with it!

Changes and Additions.

In the last few weeks I've not only started writing again, ( see my writing blog at Alanwrite,) but also, thanks to the workshops I'm holding in my studio, been able to start painting again. Who knows I might even get to to paste some of my paintings up onto this blog. At the moment I'm trying to put the finishing touches to paintings I started before Alicia became ill which is therapeutic if nothing else ...

I've decided to start putting items which relate specifically to Alicia in a blog devoted exclusively to her. Hopefully I'll get that up in the next week or so ...

Meantime let's see if I can get a picture into this post...!

Octobers letter

I know I haven't written you a letter every month,.... but then I haven't written anything at all in some months. So excuse me if I try to make up the deficit!

Alicia,

After my trip to Assisi, and what the priest said to me in confession, I know that you are in Heaven. But I also know that you are not just at my side as I have always believed you to be, but you are all around me, caring and loving me, bathing my spirit in the light of Eternal Love which is God’s gift to us all, and infusing my soul with some of the joy and happiness which you are experiencing in Heaven. So much so that at times I hardly seem to grieve at all--- at least not in the way that people around me expect me to grieve.

I hope this does not mean I love you less than I really want to, because I want my love for you to be as all embracing, as total and eternal, as is God’s love for you. I want God to let me experience some of His love for you. Even a fraction of that Divine Love will be more than enough for my poor soul to bear, but still sufficient to impel me to love you even more.

It seems to me that growth into limitless love for you, through Him, would be the essence of the Kingdom He has promised us. So teach me to love you Alicia as God loves you. In His presence you know my heart as well as anyone has known it. Unlock its depths to the light of Everlasting Love.

I would willingly surrender my present sense of your immediacy and presence if it meant, in Gods own time, I would hold you in my heart as He has always held you in His! That would truly be Heaven.