Never a good time to die

This coming Friday, Dad and Barbara would have celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary.

The death announcement in
the Redditch Advertiser

On Sunday, it will have been exactly 5 months since he died. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about him, and how much I miss him, and how much I’d like to talk to him again.

I’ve recently been thinking about all the good things that God put in place before my dad died. I want to name them here before they get forgotten in the passage of time.

A but fuzzy - but it was
blowing a gale and
we were all frozen!

The first thing that springs to mind is that the three of us had a really good holiday In November, just a few weeks earlier. I shall carry the memory of that holiday for a long time.

The day before dad died, I filled my car up with petrol. What’s so amazing about that? Well the thing I usually leave it until I’m running on the smell of it, but this time there was about a quarter of a tank left. But if I hadn’t filled up that night I wouldn’t have been able to make all the journeys over the next 3 or 4 days that I needed to; and I can imagine running out of petrol and being stranded before I’d noticed.

Auntie M usually goes home immediately after Christmas, before new year. This year, for the first time ever, she decided to stop longer, and so was still with us on the day dad died. What’s so remarkable about that? Of all our family she lives 4+ hours’ drive away… and doesn’t drive (rest of us live less than an hour apart). That meant she was involved and didn’t just get a phone call later that day.

Flowers from the grave. My cousin Chris made the cross (left),
in the colours that Dad would have liked; Ian, Gill and me
bought the one above.

Before Christmas I was reminded about a task I would have to do for the church music, in the new year. Unusually, I decided to do it there and then, instead of waiting until new year. I never do that. I always work right up to deadlines. But on this occasion, the job was already done, so I didn’t have to worry about it.

As I look back, I know there is never a good time to die; never a good time to loose people from our lives. But also, I can see the hand of God preparing me, in these simple, practical ways, to cope with all the grief that was to come. The grief is still there, but I’m learning to live with it – slowly.

God bless you.