30 years + Feast Day + remembering

Remembering and putting here some wisdom I was given about

illness while I was on bed-rest....

just snippets of things I remember, including my local priest's visits...

Prayer for wisdom, love and strength of soul and body

Absolution contained woman who wiped Christ feet with her hair

Church is our place of healing, our refuge

when one is direly ill the family can feel helpless, not knowing what to do 

a patient has to be patient and possess one's soul in patience

 and the soul can get lost and Christ is patient and loving,

a soul has to be quiet and needs quiet 

more than everyone's advice and remedies.  

***

It was really hard, those weeks of bed rest;

there was at once a constant movement of people coming to help

via an agency that our insurance covered, 

I had up to 5 people from outside our home come in one day

and often 2 + the daily person each day;

so in one way I was constantly dealing with people and

struggling with needing help and feeling so unable to do anything;

that was so difficult.

Having one's physical independence taken away,

not being able to prepare one's own food, 

it was hard for someone like myself, 

used to cooking and baking and enjoying

things.... and variety.... yes, hard to imagine how

spoiled we are, to take such things for granted,

such as food to our likely and by our own hand.

***

While there were people in my house,

I still, at the same time, felt a profound loneliness.

I ate most of my meals alone, in the bedroom.

My beloved Husband was so busy trying to 

hold down his demanding job, keeping the house in order,

making sure I had food, etc etc that we did not get a lot of time,

in the first weeks, to just see each other.

***

I am so glad that this part is behind us now.

Watching the series "When Calls the Heart" and reading

DE Stevenson helped keep the intensity of loneliness at bay.

***

One may think things like

"if I was on bed rest, I would read that big tome of a book that

I always meant to do or work on some big project (like writing etc)"

but the reality is quite different.

The first month was so exhausting, and many Sundays when I would watch

the liturgy online, since I could not go out, I would fall asleep 

in the middle of it.  

When my quilting-friend would come over for a visit,

her first 2 visits, at least, she had to go to the living-room so I could have a 

nap as I could not stay awake by the afternoon.

Physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually 

the stamina for a big project was missing.

Healing from a broken bone not only takes time

but it takes a lot of energy.

I read early on that one needs 3x the calories as normal to heal

a fractured bone ~ there is a reason that I was able to eat more

chocolate and not gain weight!

***

So, now to the present.

My Dad recently had a milestone birthday;

it's hard being away from family during those times;

but his card from us actually came on his birthday,

which was nice.

***

I am thinking of my Aunt H a lot these days...

***

My friend Tim, who I knew in my childhood,

died 30 years ago yesterday.

I am sure I have mentioned him before.

How much I loved him.

He had leukemia and died, just weeks before we would 

all come together again in our small class 

at a Christian school, a safe world, one that was

better because Tim was there.

The year before was the first time

he was in one of my classes; he often had very little hair;

how quickly did I get a crush on him? 

I remember the gold and brown of his hair, 

I know one thing, I did not love him because he was sick

but because he was who he was, in the midst of it.

I remember a boy who was patient with me,

who once when the older boys 

(as safe as my school was in terms of things it was

not perfect) threw 'ice balls' instead of snow balls at me

and it smarted and I just wanted to get away from them

but no one was allowed to stay inside during recess 

but Tim and his friend Brian could because of

Tim being sick.  I was 10 and did not really understand 

what cancer was or leukemia but I remember once Tim

having to run outside quickly, probably in Spring time, and 

vomiting over the deck that our portable classroom had. 

Back then I would not of understood that Tim was so sick

that he could not of played outside but I did know one thing,

after those bigger boys pelted me with ice-balls.

I wanted IN. 

I don't know if I knocked on the door or just opened it but

I remember Tim being there and I saying what had happened

and that I really wanted to be inside with them.

I think he must of sighed or something but he said OK

and I remember his gentleness and that Brian was playing 

guitar with a yard stick and there was laughter 

and I was away from the cold where there was

not only physical warmth but a warmth of kindness.

....

My Husband says I am anything but subtle and I am sure

my feelings of affection for him were noticed by others and

may have been a slight annoyance for Tim but 

he handled it well I think and the last day of class

he gave me his Garfield coloured pencils, a Garfield lead pencil

and paper.... it was the last time I ever saw him alive.

I still think somehow he knew that he was not coming back

and I think he must of been more sick than I knew.

I think he missed some school already;

I prayed for him every night and full expected Tim 

to recover.

I trusted God implicitly as a girl would trust her good and trustworthy father.

God as Father was something I lived knowing every day of my life.

In summer I would go on walks with God and my dog Spike and 

I would swing on the swing-set and sing nonsense songs that somehow
I was singing to God and my Mother said of those years that I was 

'always chanting something' and those summers had sunshine,

simplicity and the comfort of knowing that God was with me

and I could tell Him things just like I could tell my dog Spike,

and my God-the-Father could fix ANY thing, just like

my Dad could fix anything,

so I knew that God would make Tim better and I just prayed 

every day full of trust...

Well, I doubt that Tim mentioned me at home; he was a normal 

boy who was 10 and played baseball and had lots of friends at school.

Actually no one really knew how much I loved Tim, that I know of.

I was a pretty introverted yet very talkative child.

I knew Tim as the most Christian boy I knew 

and I loved him very much.

Well.

We had recently got the teacher's letter with a list of things to bring 

to school the coming year and this list included coloured pencils.

I was sitting at our dining room table, chattering away as usual, 

and was telling my Mom full of happiness that she did not need

to buy me coloured pencils since I had the ones Tim gave me...

and right as I was telling her, the phone rang and she went to get it.

Her voice changed on the phone and she came back

with a quieter but steady kind voice and told me

that (I don't remember who called to tell us) that Tim had died.

I don't remember the order of things but I know I said then

I would not use his coloured pencils but keep them

(I still have them to this day) and I went to the bathroom.

My life had just been sliced in two, and in the bathroom I looked up

and asked God why did You let Tim die?

and I felt a grief I had never known and a confusion of why 

God my Father had not made Tim better.

My 10 year old Knight in Shining Armour.

Surely, he could not die.

But he did and my Mom had made me a little pillow and every night

for a long time I would cry as I fell asleep on that pillow,

from missing Tim.  The pillow yellowed with my tears.

I did not know how to express grief openly and so was quiet about it,

so quiet that it was 20 years later, when I was 30, that my parents found out

and that I could not remember my Dad's birthday because I got that

date and the date of Tim's death mixed up, 

(My Dad's birthday is the day before Tim died).

I went to the funeral I think. I know I was at the funeral home and

my Mom told Tim's Mom, with me there, that I prayed for Tim

every night.  We were given a small card with a child angel on front and 

about Tim inside and I knew I wore a dress and that Tim lay there...

***

Where my school was, there was a church on one side and on the other side,

a cemetery and Tim was buried there.

There was a metal fence separating the school from the cemetery and I remember 

standing there, looking at the bush that was near Tim's grave,

that was flat on the ground, so I could not see it exactly but

I knew he was there and could not open the door again when

I needed warmth in the middle of winter.

***

The funeral.  Tim looked puffy to me.  

I learned later that he was afraid that Heaven was already full and 

had to be reassured that Jesus had room for him there.

It must of been hard to face death at 10 years old.

And here no one had told me he was even sick.

I was not able to visit him, not even once or write him a card.

But every night I was praying for him in my prayers

that my Mom did with me and one of the hardest things was that

as a child I was not told, once Tim died, that I could still pray for him.

So it was 20 years later, when I was an Orthodox Christian for a few years,

that we had a small prayer service for him in church.

I brought roses to the Theotokos to thank her for taking care of Tim,

since at 10 I reasoned he still needed a Mother,

and I had the wine, bread and P and K, our Ukrainian grandparents of our Parish,

helped me lift the table at the end of the prayers and all that love 

I had for Tim finally was expressed and I had this great sense of healing

from a loss that to me was still taking up a big part of my inside.

I an still hear Tim's voice when I am alone and quiet, thinking about it.

The Lent before I first learned of Mr Husband, 

I felt Tim nearby in church.  I knew he was there.

I know he is caring for me still by his prayers, I don't need it explained, but 

I was in a lot of distress that year and somehow Tim was involved in 

helping me through it and I treasure that very much.

And that Pascha, a church friend later told me, she said I looked like

a Bride and by the next Pascha my beloved Husband asked me to 

marry him on Pascha afternoon.

***

So that 20 year service, I wrote a card to Tim's parents,

really emotionally to his Mom, and his Mom wrote me back

and told me how when Tim died he got a big smile on his face

and his Mom knew he was seeing Jesus.

***

I did not understand then that sometimes God took those we loved

from us and that Christ would come and take them

and that the person would never be alone or away from Christ.

Back then I just knew Tim was away from me. 

***

My Husband knows all about Tim

and that he was my first love, really and my Husband 

my second.... 

***

Sometimes in gym class I would run away

and be found sitting in dirt under the steps on the side of the

building and when the teacher would ask me what was wrong

all I could say was 'I missed Tim' and not about whatever

had happened in gym class that day

(I always dreaded that class, I was uncoordinated and did not enjoy 

such classes...)

***

So we were at Church yesterday, the new calendar Feast of the

Transfiguration of Christ, and that is the day Tim died on 

and I was thinking of him so much during the liturgy,

with sunlight shining, fruit in baskets waiting to be blessed,

Holy Communion, everyone I knew well at this church there,

and I was thinking of Tim and was surprised, the night before,

when I told my Husband that the next day I would buy a big candle for Tim.

that I suddenly was close to weeping and I told our dear

elderly candle-desk man about Tim and he said how precious the 

memories are and he gave a loving laugh when I told him that one of the reasons

I am excited to (God willing!) go to Heaven one day is so I could see Tim

again and I knew our candle-desk man laughed because I am only 40 

and here he is, over 80 but I could only say, well, I made it 30 years already since

Tim died and that was something... 

***

It is wonderful that in Church we are so close to those who have gone before us.

***

My Husband and I have been thinking a lot of Patrick and missing him.

Having his table cloth out felt like I was in the midst of a hug from Patrick,

though he was not the hugging type.  But he did love and cared for us.

And my Husband is still working faithfully to help wind up everything for 

Patrick after he died, just like he promised he would.

We've been listening to CDs of Patrick's and 

I can't wait to bake rolls, bread or muffins and use the 

metal basket that was Patrick's again.

***

I have not been to our far-away church, where Patrick is known and loved,

since mid-May and we hope to go again soon...

***

And so, we continue to work towards recovery, to 

resuming what used to be our normal lives...