Love interrupted
- Julia Stevens
- May 17, 2019
- 8 min read
( Buttercups from the field behind Loseley)
It has been too beautiful outside in the past few days to come and write. I have been revelling in the joys of May and haven't wanted to sit inside until today when the empty blue skies and hot sunshine has broken and grey clouds have rolled in.
For the past few weeks it has become my morning habit (on any day I wake early enough and the sun is shining) to go down to the lake and start the day gently with the quiet pasture and lake for company. I quickly get dressed into whatever is still hanging on my chair from yesterday, usually old jeans and a sweat shirt. Put on the kettle, splash my face with water, brush my teeth, make a cup of tea. Grab my bible and journal and then make my way downstairs to pull on my wellington boots.
At this early hour everything is still clean and bright after the evenings rest. It is one of my favourite times, the unfolding glory of a fresh clean new day.
I wander down along the corridor of blossoming chestnut trees through wet grass. The trees smell sweet in the morning. The huge blossoms white and pendulous. Loseley is quiet, no visitors have arrived yet, although I know everyone who lives here is slowly rising all around me in their various places of habitation.
The birds around the lake are still nestled down together in a warm blur of feathers. Sometimes I walk past the geese and they can't be bothered to move. They just raise their heads, give a feeble 'go away' croak and then snooze on. The 2 Jersey cows in the field raise a head and then settle back into their slumber.
The ground is damp with the dew that has gathered overnight. The sun is low on the horizon but gaining height with every minute. I make my way around the lake to the back area which is receiving all the sunshine and sit at my bench overgrown with stinging nettles and sticky chick weed.
Often the little guys are already practising their chords. A wren might alight on the tree branch overhanging the lake and serenade me or tell me off for being late to morning chorus. I listen to the slapping of fish in the reeds. At this early hour the low angle of sunlight means the surface water is brightly lit and the fat carp cruise the shallows with their mouths wide open hoovering midges from the water surface. Some mornings the carp flap their tails in the shallows. There is a huge amount of splashing and slapping noises. I stand and watch, drinking my tea and thinking what clowns they are. Sometimes I see them leap out of the water to catch a flying insect. They are fat and heavy and not at all athletic but I enjoy their enthusiasm.
One year I saw a kingfisher but he hasn't been seen yet this year. Then there is the old heron who looks like a strict headmaster over seeing the lake from his perch. He has his eyes on the baby geese and although I try and warn them, he usually eats a few of them. I once caught a fox scuttling off with a moor hen in his mouth. There is always something going on.
It is a grand way to start the day. Read, journal and reflect. I am processing so much on paper in my journal and very little of it reaches you the reader on my blog. But I do owe you an update. I expect you are wondering how my brother is doing. He has been in hospital for nearly 2 months now !
The good news is that he has put on a kilo in weight, he eats loads, his body is getting stronger and stronger. His mind is settling down and his memory recall is increasing every day. The meeting we had with a blood specialist threw a surprise into the mix. Underlying the brain bleed was a rare disease named PAN - Poly Arteritis Nodusa , which means his medium size blood vessels are irregular and look like rosary beads! Scans show he has suffered a bleed in the past which has healed itself. This second bleed could have been brought on by a number of factors but underlying it all the PAN has to be treated with a mild dose of chemotherapy.
So we are not out of the danger zone just yet but Simon is bouncing back. We still have months, probably more like years to work our way through the fallout from this incident but we are getting there and we have my brother back.
Now you might be wondering what the title of this blog,' Love interrupted,' has to do with this post.
Well at this time of year I am always very sensitive to my work situation with a family that lost their mother to pancreatic cancer just under 2 years ago. At the end of May and beginning of June they will be remembering those devastating last few weeks with her and the series of events that unfolded leading up to her passing.
I obviously can't write about their personal journey but I have been keeping an eye on the musings of another Simon, Simon Thomas whose wife died 6 months after my kids lost their Mum. He has written a book about his experience and recently posted the words below describing the feeling of drowning but slowly regaining your feet that comes when you lose a loved one ....
" Then, almost without realising it, that land turned from being a distant form on the horizon to something you could almost reach out and touch. The light was now burning brighter and for longer. Suddenly, for the first time, our feet could feel the sea-bed below. Bit-by-bit, we discovered what it felt like to walk again. As we pulled our legs through the water to reach the shore, waves would still hit us from behind and knock us off our feet, the currents would try and drag us back out to sea again: but the desire to reach shore drove us on - and then finally, somehow, we were on land once again. So many things reminded us of the beauty of life. Yet this new land; this existence without Gemma, felt so utterly different. Life is still beautiful, but it feels and smells so different."
Lines from the final chapter of 'Love interrupted' by Simon Thomas. His wife was diagnosed with acute myeloid Leukeamia and within 3 days of the diagnosis she was gone.
Which brings me back to my ponderings on death and my surprise at how few people have even contemplated what comes next. I am 100% convinced that death is just a quick easy breath, leaving the body behind and entering eternity either with God or without God depending on whether you related to Him or rejected Him here on earth.
I have met at least one man who has died and experienced heaven and glimpsed very briefly hell. And he still had a glow on his face decades after the incident. ( Ian McCormack) I have read books and listened to many others who have left their bodies and visited heaven. All of them say they didn't want to return to earth. One man said he was depressed for 3 months after returning. Another said it is not St Peter that meets you but Abraham. That makes sense as he is the father of the faith. They all talk about colours you won't see on earth and a radiance that comes from inside everything. Life without death and decay. No dust. Vibrant life which makes me think that Spring and the month of May are a foretaste of heaven. I am pretty excited about leaving this world behind myself even though I do appreciate that leaving earth means leaving relationships interrupted and it's very painful & difficult to handle for the people you leave behind.
( The Wisteria on the walled garden at Loseley)
So I have just about caught you up with the past 2 weeks. One more thing to mention, since we have just had a run of fabulous evenings and sunsets to enjoy ...
My evening routine at BAR GIULiETTA -
In the evenings I do a similar thing to the morning but in reverse. I watch as the world goes to bed. I usually take a beer and sit with my back against the Stable wall which is always warm and releasing heat from the day. In that position I can catch the last rays of sunshine and look across the sweeping parkland lawn at Loseley to the fields and woods on the horizon. I don't have my own garden and since the courtyard at this time of day is cloaked in shade, I usually wander around to the front of the stable area to my little 'bar giulietta.' ( Obviously not a real place, just a figment of my imagination.) Any one who knows my father will at this point be saying ... "gosh, you are just like Clive. He loves a beer at the top of the garden, catching the last of the sun's rays."
I know, but actually all we are doing is something the Danes have a word for - HYGGE ( hue-gah) which is the art of living well. Taking simple everyday activities and making the most of them. Slowing down and breathing in. Soaking ourselves in the moment.
On Tuesday before I sat down to watch the sunset, I went up into the pasture and picked as many buttercups as my hands could hold and made a chain which I then draped across a lavishly blossoming tree. (The photos are below. ) Next I made the chain into a crown and tried taking a selfie. When I looked at it later and enlarged the background I was so happy to see my friends Rosie and Finnegan, sweeping the skies over the pasture for insects at dusk.
( Me and my buttercup crown & Rosie and Finnegan in the sky above.)
I look at how bright the vegetation is at this time of year and I think it will be brighter and stronger and more vibrant in heaven. I look at blossom and flowers and think about those colours I haven't seen yet that are too beautiful to even imagine or tie down with human words. I think about heaven and I think about hospitals and blood disease and death. I am not morbid. I am philosophical. I think about here and now, the pain of difficult circumstances and the beauty of eternity. It seems that God doesn't remove the ugly or the difficult, He weaves it into something beautiful. Taking a loss and making it a gain. Taking death and bringing life from it. Turning what was meant for evil into good.
I am hopeful and I love the month of May.
Last night I watched 2 geese having a staring match. They were eyeing each other with malicious intent. Who knows what the offence was over. What broke the tension were a couple of deer who came running at break neck speed over the grass only to do an about turn as soon as they saw me. I think they were young males showing off, testing their strength against each other, but who weren't quite so brave when they spotted me!
But the best incident involved 3 ducks, 2 guys chasing one poor girl, like fat heavy torpedoes bombing through the sky. Their bodies are so weighty that they physically part the air like a tidal wave when they pass overhead. I watched them skimming over the walled garden, narrowly avoiding hitting hedges and tree trunks as they battled it out for the ladies attention. (She just looked annoyed and was trying to escape.)
All of this comical activity makes me smile and appreciate that God has an incredible sense of humour. If life down here is just a glimpse of how good is is going to be in heaven, we have nothing to be afraid of.
For this perishable (part of us) must put on the imperishable (nature), and this mortal (part of us, this nature that is capable of dying) must put on immortality (freedom from death).
And when this perishable puts on the imperishable and this that was capable of dying puts on freedom from death, then shall be fulfilled the Scripture that says,
Death is swallowed up (utterly vanquished forever) in and unto victory.
Oh death where is your victory? O death where is your sting?
1 Corinthians 15:53 - 55 - Amplified Bible
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