Sometimes, time seems to stand still - or at least slow down to a snail’s pace. I hear the clock ticking and birds outside the window singing, surrounded by silent space while my heart is in turmoil within. “Lord, my son is sick”. I teeter on the verge of panic, where vertigo would drag me over the edge and into the chasm… ‘must keep looking up to the light, must keep my feet!’ I’ve got to hold it together because I am the lynch-pin, the carer, the one who makes things happen. So when I get to the end of myself - what then? Somehow in the hollow emptiness I keep going, of course! Somewhere I find the grace I need. At least I have until now… there are no guarantees for tomorrow. But so far, love has carried and compelled me, one day at a time.
There is a saying somewhere that ‘weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning’. When will morning come? This started months ago and I can’t remember when I last felt carefree. The journey has been hard, hard, hard, like carrying heavy rocks up a hill: I stop and try to put them down, but they are lodged in my heart. Its a weary road… but isn’t it amazing what you can get used to, how you grow? After a while what was new and strange is old and familiar: that’s adaptation for you. So - further on and further in, going deeper still, stepping out the journey in the valley of the shadow. The challenge is to keep looking at the horizon and the first glimmers of dawn, where hope springs eternal.
I’m not an optimist. Fears in my head speak of the worst because I’ve been through the worst before. But fear is no way to live life and I have learned to choose hope and faith. I’ve also heard it said that ’courage is fear that has said its prayers’. So I will keep walking forward, even though the future is impossible to gauge. It’s grace for today I need - there is no grace for tomorrow.
And that’s how people cope with really terrible things, I suppose. There is so much suffering in the world; we look at others’ griefs and wonder how they manage - loved-ones lives cut short, the loss of a child, a long-term illness, poverty and deprivation, betrayal and loss, sudden accident or freak disasters claiming thousands of souls - ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune… the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to’ (Shakespeare knew a thing or two). I cannot carry another person’s load, though maybe I can help along the way; another person’s pain is not mine to feel, though empathy is always part of loving. But each of us will only find the grace to walk our own path, and somehow through that journey, and if we will allow it, become more whole. And so eventually we all arrive at the door of Hamlet’s ‘undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns’, though exactly when we each arrive there remains veiled to the end. Life’s greatest mystery!
We cling to life as if that’s all there is. ‘I am immortal til He calls me home’ the faithful chant. Yet I have no rights: I don’t know what tomorrow brings. I cannot heal my son or make life happy again and I may have to face the worst in days to come. However, here’s my testimony, for what its worth, from one mother’s heart to yours: I am grateful for the birdsong and the boy and the blessings of my life, I do have hope that cannot die, and I can truly say this, there is always grace to walk the road, one day - or night - at a time.
One Response to “The longest night”
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Difficult times. I wish you courage and hope.