Mothers Day

My mother and I were never especially close.

I always considered my Grandmother more my mother, because for all sorts of odd family reasons I was raised by her until it was time to go to school. As I grew to adult hood and married we grew even more distant. Where I made different choices to those she made or might have made she took it as a criticism of herself. Sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't but it certainly didn't help matters. Mothers Day's came and went and I observed them politely, no more than that.

Dad and I were always close but my mother, well. We never really seemed to be on the same wavelength.

Then Dad died eight months ago, just after my sister had emigrated.

And Mum and I found ourselves thrown together.

It has been a curious thing to come to know my mother, now in her seventies when I am in my fifties. To forge the first tentative strands of friendship. To put aside a lifetime of grudges and anger and hurt. To discover that we share a similar taste in movies and that the things that make us laugh are the same, that both of us sleep with a nightlight, that we both love the fragrance of gardenia's. Small things often, unimportant perhaps, but of such things can new beginnings be made.

I am fortunate, I think, to get a second chance.

And today she and I have had a lovely laughter filled lunch.

Small Boy isn't small any more

Robin at Metanoia writes of being astonished at her son's births and made me think of my own astonishment that my own Small Boy was seventeen yesterday, and is no longer a small boy. I shall have to find a new name for him. Mostly I think that as a parent I am astonished at how fast and how thoroughly my sons have grown up, and I marvel at the change from helpless dependence to striding independence.

But none of this normal, natural growing up is what astonished me about Small Boy.

He was born some nine weeks early and I think the first time I was truly astonished by him was when we celebrated his first birthday. Up till then I think each day had been such a struggle to keep him alive that I had ceased to think about his first birthday or any other birthday. That first year was spent in hospitals and doctors rooms and blood labs and imaging centres and his survival was by no means certain. I didn't think of that though, each day was an effort dedicated to keeping him alive.

Like many premies he grew out of his difficulties and by his fourth year of school spent almost all term there. In time he grew into a fine dedicated sportsman, passionate about rugby in particular. When he went to High School it was hard to beleive that he had ever been ill. He was undoubtedly a jock.

Then he was involved in an horrific rugby accident in a match twenty two months ago and suddenly we were in a hospital waiting anxiously as doctors worked to keep him alive and prevent the swelling spinal cord from further damage that would result in permanent paralysis. This too he finally overcame and is once more fit and rushing about sports fields. Tragically never again as a player. The recovery has been long and hard and involved the loss of dreams that many of us do not experience until we are much older, and often not in so brutal a fashion.

Remembering his frightening panicky (on my part) sudden birth I am astonished that he has reached seventeen at all. I never dared to dream about his birthdays, taking each one as a gift.

Today I am delighted by his survival and courage and strength and honesty.

Festivals and Nowhere

Today is a holiday in Zimbabwe.

So I was free to attend the first day of a week long annual schools rugby festival with my husband and son. It was more wintry than usual but despite that it was good to be able to attend. Two years ago my son was a leading participant, last year he was recovering from a fractured vertebrae and this year he was again participating but as a referee. I find it heartbreaking but he loves still being totally immersed in the game that he loves so passionately.

With out the tension that usually accompanies such tournaments (for me) I had an utterly different perspective.

Firstly I have never noticed that this festival is mostly about creating friendships amongst the boys. Zimbabwe is a small country with somewhere between ten and twelve million people so a sporting event that draws in eighty six high schools is a big deal.  I had time to notice and to marvel at a festival that attracts schools from every strata of our society. Schools range from my sons school which is the oldest boys school in the country, playing sports at the highest level for over hundred years to a poor rural school attending for the first time. Coaches from new schools are attached to top playing schools to assist their own development. 

Moments in the day ....

        - the inspiration of meeting my friend Nikki who had a mastectomy a couple of weeks ago, who usually runs a pitch side medical team (such as the one that saved my sons life twenty months ago) but not being fit enough  to do so now promoted to overall management of the medical teams;

       - watching my son take charge of a difficult bad tempered game maintain control and keep it safe for the players;

       - meeting referee's from Uganda and Zambia and from Bulawayo in southern Zimbabwe

 but with out doubt the best moment in the day was the sheer confusion in the announcers voice as he announced the team from Nowhere. He clearly does not know that while many church mission stations in this country are named for saints such as St Ignatius or Regina Coeli or for the areas in which they are situated such as the Jesuit Mission at Chisawasha there are none so quirkily named as Nowhere Mission deep in the bush about five hours north west of the the capital - in the middle of Nowhere if truth be told......

I am still chuckling.

Cherry blossoms

I have recently been fascinated by the oppositeness of the seasons north and south. We are definitely into winter ... there is snow in South Africa which translates as cold for us, and north of the Equator it is spring ..... erratic weather, daffodils and the like........

But some things don't do opposites.

On my way home this evening I saw a cherry tree in full blossom. And thought about the cherry trees in blossom in Washington and Japan and other cities in the north. In blossom now also.

And thought with some amusement that cherry trees stick to the schedule that they are born with, regardless of the state of the weather and regardless of their location north or south of the equator.

High Holy Days

I've had a severe bout of flu these last few days and so have been too ill to attend any of the Triduum Masses. It is the first time in years that I have missed the Triduum, which was the moment I fell in love with the Easter Liturgy as Catholics do it. It was a long faltering hop from here to wanting to become a Catholic, but this is where the desire to do so crystallised into consciousness for me.

Instead I have had a very different kind of Easter. Prayed alone for the most part.

This morning I have stood by our east facing windows and watched the sunrise, remembering……

Remembering Easter in Jerusalem some thirty years ago, sitting with other pilgrims from all over the world in the "Garden Tomb" gardens waiting for the dawn.

Remembering Easter as a small child, walking with my Grandmother down to the river and watching for the dawn, followed by sausage in gravy (kept hot in a thermos flask) on fresh baked bread.

Remembering climbing a small hill overlooking Kariba Lake in the dark as a teenager to celebrate the Risen Lord with my youth group in the first light of dawn.

Remembering those Easter's when the only prayer that made sense was "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

Remembering Easters gone by shared with family and friends, ordinary love filled holidays …….

Remembering that the High Holy Days are about remembering, as is the Eucharist. Remembering that as God has been with me in the past, so He will remain in my present, regardless of whether I am able to recognise that or not.

In my remembering I felt the loneliness of this year's Easter, celebrated by myself. Yet, in the gathering dawn I knew I was not alone, that around the world faithful people of all shades and understanding would be gathering to remember and to celebrate, just I am doing alone. And my prayer turned to my friend Theresa who was received into the Catholic Church last night. Her journey to this point has been long and arduous but joy filled, especially these last few weeks.

And so with the Christian world I can say this morning

The Lord is Risen!

He is Risen indeed!

Allelulia.

Holy Week

I have just had the most curious discussion with a friend.

She is not Christian but seeks a spiritual life attached to no particular religion or faith. I find talking to her often refreshing and exciting - she opens my mind to other perspectives that I might not have seen otherwise. But for all that I haven't realised before that she has no sense of the discipline and protection to be had within a religious faith or that she has real difficulty in seeing religious faith as spiritual. Hers is a very lonely belief, I think and not one I would chose.

She asked what Holy Week was all about and why I would celebrate it year after year. Didn't I get bored?

I did my best, but after a bit it became clear that never having been part of corporate worship she could not comprehend the nature of the Liturgy and how it is important. And I didn't have the words or concepts to explain, only a deeply felt experience.

Perhaps you could tell me how the Liturgy of Holy Week helps you?

Spring and winter

Last week when I got home from Johannesburg I got home to the early days of winter. I had left five days before in late summer, and now I had missed the two days of autumn to find myself in winter. Winter as in the tropics ... colder, dry. No snow. Winter endured for a few months in houses and clothing designed for the hot weather ......

And suddenly the odd dislocation I feel at Easter makes sense. Much of the imagery, much of the symbolism that I read and is part of the liturgy is geared to new life, to spring. Spring that is happening to the north of me, where Life burgeons anew after the layering stillness of snow and cold and long, cold winters. A physical affirmation of the Resurrection. Yet my physical world is drifting down to dormancy, leaves yellow and fall, grasses brown and die, days shorten and the light itself changes. The world around me dies ...... withdraws, bides it's time until the coming of the rains. In the deserts to the south and west of us seeds fall to lie dormant in the sand not for a season but for many seasons. Until the rain, that comes once in ten years, falls. And then in days plants spring up and flower and are fruitful ....

Here and to me just now, the Cross, Good Friday makes sense, but not always the Resurrection.