April. Adventures. Anxiety. ANN!

April has been a strange month. For the first two weeks, we adventured off to France, exploring with Pickle. So much to see and discover, amid mixed weather: a couple of days of persistent rain, some wind, more sunshine and a couple of days of summer-style warmth. Not bad for the month.

Enormous swell off the south coast - perhaps up to twenty feet

Beautiful 'summer's' evening at Rocquaine

Found in the garden centre car park: the latest Lamborghini.  #notinterested 

Pickle's preferred breakfast position

Found in the kitchen: an unusual moth...

 Yet, in the middle of it, some very sad news. My dearest friend, Ann, passed on halfway through the month, finally succumbing to pneumonia after a long and brave battle with lung cancer. Words cannot express how I feel, although I have jotted down some memories here. My new head kindly allowed me the day to attend the funeral. Although it was one of the saddest days I have had for a long tithme, it was good to meet up with her husband Richard and my dear friends Catherine and Mary - the other 'sisters' in our tight-knit group.

Then, back to work. The term has started at full gallop, as usual: always so much to do. A full scale musical production, then straight into our World War Two studies. First off was a trip to the Occupation Museum, a wonderful private collection of all kinds of Occupation-themed artefacts.

The film of the book 'The Potato Peel Pie Literary Society' had just come out, a tale about the Occupation of Guernsey during WW2 by the Germans, so there is a lot of local interest. We spent the last Saturday of the month visiting one of the gun batteries, the Mirus battery in St Saviours. A local organisation, Festung Guernsey, are doing a wonderful job slowly restoring some of the old installations, sharing them with the public. Fascinating to see, through photographs and the remains of the enormous bunkers, the huge German war machine in action. Awe-inspiring engineering.

At home, catching up with friends again through letters and emails, over meals, afternoon tea and on our Thursday nights...lovely.

A full month, too much to take in, really.

Ann

Ann, two years ago.

The news that my dearest friend, Ann, had passed on was a shock which numbed me until the hour of her funeral. For I could not – cannot - imagine a world without her. She had been part of my life, whether near or far away, for nearly 37 years.

There were many years, of course, when we had little contact because I was in Kenya. We had long-standing jokes: that she didn’t invite me to her wedding : I found out when I rang her, hoping to meet up when I was visiting England, only to hear from her mother that Ann was on her honeymoon. I hadn’t even realised that she was engaged. I forgave when I realised how happy she was with Richard. He became a dear friend: we loved them both dearly.

Ann insisted – until I found a photo to prove the contrary – that she had never come to my own wedding, claiming that she hadn’t been invited. So, we joked, poring over the wedding album: there you are, Ann; you must have gatecrashed AND got yourself into the official wedding photos.

Such a quick wit: the time she told me she’d had to take the day easy as she knew she had a stressful hospital visit in the afternoon and that she would be seeing me afterwards, which would be ‘traumatic’ – her word.  I shudder to think about my riposte on hearing that she had planned her funeral: I asked her, in jest of course, when it would be. “I’ll let you know,” she replied. But of course she didn’t. It was up to her husband Richard to do that.

Ann and Richard, October 2016.

Ann, October 2016

I didn’t want her to die. I DIDN’T WANT HER TO DIE.  What would the world look like without her?

Ann, who was closer than a sister. Who knew me inside and out, told me truth about myself as no one in the entire world could. Spoke truth into my life and my heart. She touched me in the deepest part of my soul. She could put her finger on things in me which I barely knew myself. Sometimes, indeed, the truth she spoke to me about myself hurt (Truth has its way of doing that): but I knew I was unconditionally loved. She was a rock of encouragement, love and truth. To lose her is indeed to lose a sister, a friend who was and is, as the Bible says: “Closer than a brother.” (That verse applies to sisters, too!)

We have shared endless hours of talking, late into the night. Shared a bed, sleeping top to tail in the simplest of ‘hotellis’ en route to visit Lake Turkana. Shared hopes and dreams, but more often fears and failures and difficulties and yet ending up laughing and encouraged.

We could stay up all night. We shared our most embarrassing and foolish moments – and liked to remind each other of them, as well. We made each other laugh.  I didn’t see enough of her, although periodic phone calls were always revitalizing. And looonng. 

July 1981 was the first time I met her, in London Colney in Hertfordshire at the headquarters of the Volunteer Missionary Movement. We’d both joined as volunteer teachers, hoping to be used by God in Africa, responding to words from Isaiah: “Here I am, send me.”  We’d sat next to each other during the first community prayer and worship session, watching in bemusement as, gradually, the others rose to their feet and joined in dancing around the chapel to the refrain of ‘Bind us together’. She turned to me after it was finished and nearly everyone had left. “I don’t think this is for me,” she said. “Me neither,” was my reply. We instantly bonded, survived the preparation course, went out to Kenya where we worked about an hour’s drive away from each other and even travelled on the same plane. We did indeed learn to clap and sing in praise and worship - it WAS our ‘thing’, after all. A few months later on 2^nd February 1982, we both set foot on Kenyan soil for the first time, living and working an hour away from each other.

We visited quite frequently, each struggling with our own challenges: adjusting to the simplicity of life in rural Kenya was the least of them. Addressing our own inner demons and shortcomings, coming to terms with the real inner person, was sometimes more than we could manage but we learned to face them and support each other.  We journeyed up to Lake Turkana together in buses and matatus and on the back of a maize lorry.  Ann’s compassion for the poor, her knowledge of geography and her large and close-knit family left me a little in awe of her: but she was always able to dispel any false notions I had with a quick comment.

Even the Africans thought we were sisters, though her hair was straighter and longer than mine: there was still a similarity in our heights, figures and the way we walked.

Her unwavering faith has been an inspiration. I have been privileged to pray for her, alone and in silence, with her and out loud. In a garden centre parking lot and in a chapel of healing.

And kind. Ann was so kind. She loved my parents, who were ‘very good’ to her – I took their friendliness and hospitality for granted, but she never did, valuing them tremendously. She would meet my plane when I came to visit my parents in Cheshire, driving miles to Manchester Airport to pick me up. One time, she was half an hour late: she’d got lost in the airport, driving round and round until she finally found me. She stopped the car on a double yellow line, turned off the engine and threw her arms around me in a tremendous hug. I noticed a police car just a few yards away. “Um, Ann – there’s a police car just there. Do you think we should move off – we’re illegally parked.” She dismissed my suggestion with a wave of her hands. “Oh, it’s fine – we’re old friends. I’ve had to ask them several times how to find where to pick you up.”

She was wonderful at recognising beauty in other people and in circumstances. She was quick to recognise God’s loving hand in prompting others to action. She loved flowers, birds, nature...

I loved her absolute dedication to our Lord Jesus. Like all of us, she had questions and doubts but once determined, she was resolute in what she did. I admired her patience and commitment. And she was so REAL, with such a brilliant sense of humour.

And how we laughed and laughed together, especially over the memory of our embarrassment when we tried to photobomb Cath’s wedding photo. Well, we didn’t really, we just wanted a snap of her with all of us – including Mary D (Mary Doherty, who became Mary Carpenter and then moved to Westport in Ireland) – but it wasn’t a suitable time and so we were asked to move!!  We never let Cath forget that...that she ‘didn’t want’ us in her wedding photo.

The talking, talking, talking: for hours.  The blessing of being known and loved unconditionally. The encouragement, the reminders of God’s goodness. So much love.

Visits were treasured. Ann visited me in Guernsey several times: once, just after her mother died, on Mothering Sunday, taking a Mother's Day gift of a pot of primulas from our church service back home with her. She came, twice, with our other two 'sisters', Cath and Mary. We had such fun: we walked and explored; at breakfast in the garden; gathered on the sofa bed late at night, talking and drinking Bailey's with ice - Mary's idea; went kayaking, which produced one of the funniest memories. 

Our first 'sisters' visit to Guernsey in 2009.

Ann clowning around near the bottom of the cliffs. Yet it was on the path just above this, as we climbed back up, that she became so breathless, having to stop, coughing. We urged her to get her breathlessness checked up on.... it was the beginning of the cancer, diagnosed a few months later....

Meeting up with Alan Jouanny and family on Herm. Alan, from Jersey, had been with us in Kenya, also in the same group with VMM, travelling out with us on the same plane....

Ann had more than a little trouble getting used to her bike...

Such fun... so many happy memories...

We had a double kayak, so Mary and I set out across the bay while Cath and Ann changed into wetsuits. I wish I'd been there. Ann had tremendous difficulty with her wetsuit. It's not easy to pull on tight neoprene in any case - almost a learned skill, but Ann managed to get hers on a total of three times. The first time: back to front. Oops, uncomfortable. The second time: inside out. Hmmm. The third time, she nearly got it upside down but managed to work it out and get it on properly. I can't remember how she extricated herself afterwards...

But during the summer visit in 2009, she alarmed us by having to stop during a walk on the cliffs to catch her breath, pausing for a while. "It's just asthma," she panted, "at least, the doctor thinks so."
"Ann, you need to get it checked out properly," I urged, concerned: it didn't sound like asthma to me.
It wasn't. A couple of months later, and lung cancer - the same cancer which her mother had suffered from - was diagnosed.

The top of the cliffs... where we first noticed something was wrong.

We googled it. Prognosis: no more than five years. Ann defied the odds, again and again, but there was no cure and she was not healed in her physical body here.

There were other times we all met up, including a visit to Ireland and a return visit to Guernsey. 

But there was also a time when Ann could not make one of our get togethers in Lichfield: she had been away for several days on a long-distance walk and had something else a couple of days later. She was tired and couldn't fit it in. But we knew, also, that she had begun to prepare herself for her departure, with pilgrimage and prayer and an increased focus, especially after early retirement, on good works. She was involved with various social and healing ministries, being a trustee of one charity and attending healing weekends, praying with people. Her compassion always extended outwards, away from herself.

A year before she died, as Ann was, even then, dying, she was at a particular crisis point.  She had developed lung cancer when she was 52 and hung on until she was nearly 61, another 8 years or so. A blockage had caused her intense breathing difficulties; there was then a ‘procedure’ to remove it; and then, as she was unable to breathe without a machine, she was put into an induced ‘sleep’. A coma. Then the doctors told us to ‘prepare for the worst’.

For her, of course, it was not the worst. She had longed to be united with her Lord and Saviour, whose Spirit she adored and had pursued with prayer and good works for many years. Indeed, these last few years especially seemed to have been a time of preparation. She was involved in pilgrimages and healing ministries, supporting the work of others with her prayer and involvement.

But for me, it was – and is - the worst. I did not want to lose her.

I prayed for a miracle. I prayed that the Spirit touched her poor body so powerfully that all traces of cancer and disease would be removed. I prayed for COMPLETE and MIRACULOUS HEALING.

I was not ready to let her go. She was far too precious. Angry at the thought of losing her – for I could not imagine her not being in my life here on earth – I cried out to God. This could not be her time.

And it wasn’t. As I prayed, I envisaged her lying peacefully in her white hospital room: white sheets, white walls, windows set high up above eye level. And on the window ledges were perched white angels: the beautiful feathery pre-Raphelite type of angel, watching over her.

It seemed like an eternity: a week, ten days...? News from Ann’s husband Richard was that she was ‘sleeping’ peacefully. It sounded as if she was drifting away, but still we prayed... until, one Sunday morning, I ‘saw’ the angels again, this time in beautiful rainbow hues, gently multi-coloured and bright. Then the news came: Ann had woken up, was sitting up, even, with tea and toast. By Tuesday she was home.

A reprieve.

But it was not to be. She struggled bravely on, enduring procedure after procedure. A year after her ‘return’, she went back to hospital for another procedure. Already very weak and weary, she developed pneumonia, slipping gently away a few days later.

And again, unknowing, I had a sense that she had passed through the door. We had been in France, travelling around, visiting many old churches. Several of them were on the Compostelle route, the pilgrimage to Santiago, the Way of St James. I thought often of Ann: we talked about pilgrimage, a dream she had of walking the Way. She never managed it, though she did other walks and spent her life as an eager pilgrim, constantly seeking out God and extending his compassion to others.

The day she died, we visited a village which was a centre for pilgrims: two routes converged before continuing south towards Spain. As I walked into a huge ancient church, so dark inside that it was difficult to distinguish the paintings over the altar, I noticed a large display of votive candles. Many were lit and glowing alive, testimony to the prayers people had said as they lit the candle for a loved one or a particular cause.

The thought entered my mind to light a candle for her. I had seen these votive candles many times, but never felt prompted to light one until then. I told myself I might do it on my way out, choosing to wander round the church first. As I neared the display again, still half-wondering about lighting one, I remembered that it is a Catholic tradition to pray for the dead as well as those alive who might need some form of healing. I felt a check. It felt ‘wrong’ to light a candle for Ann when she was alive. Lighting a candle did not validate my prayers for her healing: I knew God loved her even more than I did and had her safely in his arms, regardless of what I did or didn’t do.

I remembered Jesus’s words to the women who had gone to the tomb on the morning of his resurrection: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Lighting a candle seemed, in that moment, to be lighting a candle for the dead. And I wanted, so urgently, for Ann to live.

I left the church, candle unlit. Returning to the motorhome, I picked up a message: Ann had passed on that same morning: perhaps half an hour before I was in the church. She WAS dead. But NO!  Ann has the gift of eternal life! She is ALIVE and safe in heaven with the Lord she loved so dearly.

Candles in Pons, just before.

Lighting candles had absolutely nothing to do with it. God could have healed her miraculously, yet he chose to take her home to be with him. We had had the gift of years with her: something, indeed, to be tremendously thankful for.

And yet. The news numbed me: I barely spoke for days.

Since hearing the news about Ann, I felt as if I had  died. Completely empty. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t cry, couldn’t feel anything. Numb.

I regret I didn’t see more of her, especially these latter years. I regret I didn’t write more, phone more, especially in the last couple of years of her illness. But how do you face a friend’s losing battle with mortality? How do you face, together, a future where one will be in heaven and the other still struggling here on earth. I don’t know.

Life went on in all its aspects. Ann’s passing seemed unreal, as if I could message or phone her on my return home,  just as before. It became reality when I heard when the funeral was, making arrangements to take the day off work to attend. When I had to tell people, just a little, about Ann and what she meant to me. The days crawled.

It hung heavy on me, the funeral. The day before went about its business with mundane joys, functioning as normal. So did I. Yet, in the pit of my stomach, lurking over my shoulder, hanging heavy on my heart was the knowledge of loss.

I suppose I knew it was coming. Few survive lung cancer for more than five years: Ann outlasted all the doctors’ predictions, living for over eight. Yet nothing prepared me for this huge sense of loss. As soon as I saw her photo in the church, I started weeping, continuing without break for the entire service. In the following hours and days, I found myself frequently breaking into tears.

Metaphors and analogies help.

I am a seedling, pulled away from my siblings whose roots are intricately entangled with mine. Part of me has been ripped off, left behind as I am forced into a new and different life without her.

I am shattered into pieces: they will come together again, form ‘me’ again, but I will not be the same. The jigsaw will be imperfect, misshapen like a strange Picasso imitation. I will not be ‘right’ without her.

There is a hole in me, a gouged-out bite savaging my flesh, leaving a gaping, tattered wound. It will heal, but torn tissue remains, weeping silently. My life’s blood has seeped out in tears, in the legacy of malignant cells, in hospital imaginings from afar.

I carry a heavy stone of grief and loss and sorrow.

And yet.... Jesus is calling. Calling to the transplant, the lonely orphan forced into a different life, a without-Ann life, calling me to come home to him.

Jesus is holding me, piecing me together, gently carrying me in all my brokenness.

Jesus is filling up the wounds, flesh on and in flesh, pouring himself into me.

Jesus carries my grief with me, bearing so much of it that it begins to lighten and lessen....

Jesus is here.

And just today, I read this similar reflection on Jesus in the middle of the mess, the broken, the unperfect life we live....We all deal with the same things...

Ann - the last time I saw her, six months before she died. Her spirit as indomitable as ever, her sense of humour always to the fore, weary as she was.