Memory Eternal ~ Christ is in our midst ~ Books, blessing and prayers for the departed

Years ago my spiritual father
and I were talking in our church hall,
near to our church library
and I asked what book I should read;
I remember my spiritual father getting me a book
Christ is in our midst;
I blogged about it, with the cover of the book,
years ago.
*
He gave it to me to read with a sense of
love and that he was giving me a book
that was specifically for me
and that would be a great discovery.
And so it was ~ this book is the first place
I read and was captured by the Orthodox
understanding of humility.
It is real treasure of a book.
*
I still love this book and I gave a copy
of it to Mr. Husband when he was still my
newly loved Orthoman.
*
The copy I read was donated by Novice K. of our parish.
*
Novice K. was,
by the time I came,
an older man, large boned, needing a walker to walk.
He had a very deep voice, white hair
and pale blue eyes.
He was sick a lot in later years,
even being in a coma for a long while,
from which he recovered.
*
This afternoon I got an email from a good friend
from my Ottawa Parish that
Novice K,
who my friend visited faithfully at the nursing home,
had passed away.
*
I remember talking in person with my friend
last time I was there that Novice K. was declining.
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Grief and loss ~ always different and always the same.
The shock, the sudden tears,
the awareness of Mr. Husband's love
as I emailed him the news.
We had just been talking about Novice K. the other day;
it was his book on St. Luke that my friend who visited
Novice K. had borrowed and then later lent to me to read
some years ago.
*
As I have been re-reading the book,
in it's second edition,
I have been telling Mr. Husband about it and Novice K.
And about the first time I read it,
when I newly in a job that I lost,
the first one I lost that I loved and so many people
in my blog community rallied around me...
so it was quite a shock to learn of Novice K. passing
after just talking about him to Mr. Husband.


I immediately took one of my
special monastery candles,
a thicker one,
that I knew would burn for some time
for Novice K.

I emailed people, prayed and
thought of the newly departed Novice K.

 

I had not personally seen Novice K. in quite a while,
though I remember the years past when he
was able to come.
How slow he would walk,
how he had to depend on others for everything,
how he always sat at the same table at coffee hour
and I would say hi to him there.
The book that he donated changed the way
I saw life and gave me my first glimpses of what
having a spiritual life means.
The book on St. Luke that I read that was his
was a great blessing to me in a time of great trial.
And so Novice K. really had a deep impact on my life
though he never knew it.
*
It is the first funeral that I will not be able to go to
in my Ottawa-home parish.
That is hard.
But I remember how when my Oma died and
how Mr. Husband and I prayed for her.
Knowing that I have Mr. Husband to pray
 with for Novice K. is a great comfort.
*
In the end the title of the first book I read that
Novice K. donated is the greatest comfort of all:
Christ is in our midst. 
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Memory Eternal!
Memory Eternal!
Memory Eternal!