Chinese Lanterns

Last night my neighbours Luke, Eilish, Karen, Sisiter Xavier, and Mary came over and just after midnight, a few minutes into our anniversary, we sent up 2 Chinese Lanterns into the night sky as a prayer remembrance of Alicia. There was very little wind and the lanterns stayed above our heads for quite a while. I have to thank Eilish and Karen for organising this wonderful memory of Alicia. She always loved any sort of celebration involving bonfires or fireworks and she must have enjoyed and appreciated this event. They even left me with another lantern I can use on a later occasionn and I even managed to get a couple of images of the first lantern as it went u[p and disappeared.

Anniversary letter

Alicia and I were married on the 30th. July 1966, ( as we always reminded people… the day the England soccer team won the World Cup!) Today is our 44th wedding anniversary, and this is my ‘anniversary letter’ to her.

Darling Alicia,
At the moment I need to keep reminding myself that you are still with me, even after 44 years, and after you have died. That your spirit, the person you really are, didn’t leave me that morning in the hospital but is still involved in every aspect of my life. As involved as you ever were when you were physically present in this world.
But you no longer exist only in this world. You exist in eternity as well, and thus your present reality is incomprehensibly greater than anything I can possibly imagine. What’s more… and I have to keep reminding myself of this also… in trying to ‘humanise’ you so that I can ‘see you’, I inevitably lose most of your present wonder and beauty. Now I will only see you as you really are when I too die. For the moment, its the following reflection that helps me to keep going.
‘If the Alicia I knew in this world was so wonderful… how much more wonderful is her present reality?’
Your perspective is different to mine because you are now part of the eternal mystery, a perspective I can only dimly perceive and share, but every memory I have of you is immeasurably enhanced by the Eternal Love present in that reality.
It’s when I think about the person you were; when I recall your enthusiasm, your willingness to assume the best in everyone and everything; when I remember your delight in even small and apparently insignificant things, your willingness to trust when others would doubt, and most of all when I recall your prayer life so full of faith and hope, I realise that, of the two of us, you are the best one to lead us both into eternity. Following behind, in your care. as I now am, I am spiritually far safer than I have ever been. Whatever happens Alicia… whatever I do stumbling along behind you,…..please don’t ever let go of my hand!
I believe you are now experiencing eternal love, an experience currently beyond my reach, but one that I long to share. Not just in order to be with you, but in order to share with you a love more intimate, and fulfilling, than we ever had before. Because that love is the Eternal Love we call ‘God’.
He is the only person with exclusive rights to another person because He wills each persons individual existence; and, while I realise that your Heaven will be different to mine because we are two different creations of His will, I also believe there will be no difficulty in us sharing our two heavens. I do not believe that God will forbid us to share either. In neither of our cases, does He have any cause to be a ‘jealous god!’
Alicia, I love you now even more than I did before you died because what I perceive to be your present reality, your spirit, has become my guiding ideal. A light leading me on through these shadows, these whispered intimations of real happiness. Through you I now have a stake in eternity I didn’t have before, and even though that stake is currently in the ‘now’, only dimly understood… it is in my heart for eternity,… an eternity of love we were both created to share….., but to share together.
Happy anniversary Alicia!

Yesterdays achievements.

Yesterday I achieved 2 things which I think Alicia approves of. The first is that I went into my studio and painted a picture, the second is that I watched Alicia on the television and felt much better for it!

I haven’t picked up a paint brush for the last 20 months since Alicia became ill, let alone painted a picture; but yesterday I finally decided it was time I went back into my studio, set out my things, and started trying to paint again. What I painted is nothing special, I certainly wouldn’t ever think of exhibiting it or asking anyone to buy it, but at least I ended the afternoon with a completed painting, and the feeling that I could go on painting… and I know that’s what Alicia wants.

She certainly doesn’t want me to spend whatever time is left to me in this world sitting around feeling sorry for myself, and just waiting to rejoin her!

Watching her on television was, in some ways much the easier achievement, and certainly the less stressful.

I have quite a lot of still photo’s of her in different places, at different times in her life, and doing different things. I have had some regrets that all I seemed to have were still photographs, and she was so full of life and energy that I almost felt short changed. Then I remembered that I had a video recording of a Mass televised from the church at Harvington in 1988 when we were joint custodians there. ( Lord…. , is it really 22 years ago?) and Alicia was part of the congregation.

At the time I recorded the transmission for the parish priest and celebrant, Father Tucker who wanted to watch it later that evening, and I haven’t watched it since. My recollection was that Alicia only appeared in it for one brief shot, and that at a distance. I was delighted, and not a little comforted to find that she appears quite a few times, and even has one close up shot while responding to the bidding prayers, and looked as lovely as I remember her looking.

Although, as I say, I was comforted by watching the video it was in some ways quite sad when I realised how many of our old friends at Harvington, who were also in the recording, have died in the subsequent years. R.I.P. to all of them.

Heavenly street life.

Last week I travelled to Manchester to spend a few days with my sister. (It’s when I managed to upload Alicia’s photographs. I don‘t think the lap top I work with at home can manage it!)

Anyway, arriving at the airport I was faced with three possible ways of getting into the city centre. By rail, bus, or taxi. Because I was in no hurry I decided to take the bus, not realising that it was a public service bus and would be stopping at every bus stop to let passengers on and off. In the event the journey took much longer than I thought it would, but at least it gave me some time for thought…. and not a few tears when I realised it was going along the road in the Fallowfield district where Alicia was living when I first saw her!!

Perhaps it was that which cast me into such a reflective frame of mind.

The point is that as you drive into Manchester from the airport you pass through a variety of areas inhabited in the main by ethnic communities; Chinese, Middle Eastern, African, each with their own distinctive cultures and,…yes,…. faiths. In each of these, as we passed through, the pavements were full of people going about their daily lives. Pushing prams, shopping, or just meeting and talking with friends. Singly, in couples, or in groups. Young and old, all in different costumes, of different colours, but all living out their lives as well as they could. Hundreds of them…. No. In the space of that one journey, thousands of them….Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, even those who would say they had no faith at all; and it occurred to me that each one of those individuals was a unique, unrepeatable life experience. In some ways all the same, but in so many other ways totally different to every other life being lived out around them.

And what’s more each of those lives was being lived because the Eternal Creator, ( whatever title you care to ascribe it, or however you care to comprehend it,) simply wished that life to be, and in so wishing, caused each one to exist.

Multiply that concept by the number of streets and towns that currently exist in this world, or have ever existed since the beginning of time… or will ever exist until time as we know it ceases to exist, and what you have is an uncountable number of unique, and varied lives willed to exist by the Creator.

As a Christian I choose to call that creator, God…. but then I asked myself a question.

Am I really to believe that having willed so many incredible, beautiful, and unrepeatable lives into existence the Eternal Creator is only really interested in those who conform to my narrow set of beliefs? That the only ones He is prepared to share His eternal happiness with are those who go to mass every Sunday, say the rosary and have reverence for the man in a white cap and cassock who lives in the Vatican.

Am I really supposed to believe that God is that narrow minded?

No I don’t believe that, any more than I believe Alicia isn’t enjoying the wonder and variety of heavenly ‘street life’ …. and waiting for me to enjoy it with her!

Photo uploads. Bingo!!

I don't really know how I've done it, I suspect it's because I've tried to upload the two photo's on another computor, ( in this case my sisters,) but at last I've manged to get them into the blog. I feel a lot better now!! More later.