Whatever He Says

Mum often told me about the night that I was born. The tale had all the elements of a great story, with drama, tension, conflict: and since I was the happy ending, of course I loved it. I also liked the part about my being born exactly at midnight and Mum having the choice between May 31st or June 1st for my birthday. She chose June 1st. Maybe that's where it all began, my fuzzy relationship with time. I've often thought that I must have been born 5 minutes late because ever since I can remember, my internal clock seemed that much behind. Left to my natural bent, even though I think that I am planning to be on time, inevitably, like clockwork, I have rolled up to church, meetings, lunch dates with friends; for life; 5 minutes late. Consistently. And exactly. I am not proud of this bad habit but I used to rationalize that if punctuality is a continuum, then 5 minutes late is not horrible. I owned the trait as though it was part of me, like a cat whose whiskers had been trimm...

As we had hoped, Paul came home on the Monday morning after his Friday heart attack.  Over the weekend we had existed in a sort of bubble in the hospital;  insulated  from the rest of the world,which seemed to have faded into insignificance for us.  O n Sunday I thought I would be able to keep my two work appointments on  Monday   and pick Paul up in between when I got the call that he was ready. I was so out of touch with reality!  In fact, we both needed me to just focus on him. He was recovering from an uncomfortably close brush with death and I was cruising on superficial calm, quite out of touch with my emotions. Below the surface lay turbulence I had not acknowledged. On Monday I began to get an inkling of that when I felt panicked at the thought of going to talk with someone about fire regulations while Paul might be waiting for pick up. With the help of my coworkers I managed to adjust my commitments.  At the hospital an ef...

I drove to the city early Friday morning beneath a sky washed in vibrant pink, to join a team of staff helping to host a conference at the beautiful new campus of  Tyndale University College and Seminary . Paul left the house early too, he was part of Faith and Culture Inclusion Network  hosting  OASIS 2015  at the Sheraton Hotel in Richmond Hill and Friday was the last day of that conference. It was just before 3.30 that I returned to my seat and saw a call from Paul coming in on my silenced cell phone. Had I not returned at that moment I wouldn't have seen it but I did and answered it. I heard Paul say deliberately, "Love, I'm okay, but I've had a heart attack," and then more shakily, "It would be very good if you could be here." He told me which hospital he was in. All I could say was, "I'm on my way. I'll be right there!" And on my way out, I told people in my path what had happened, leaving shocked faces in my wake, and prayers...

This afternoon I stopped at the post office, and found among the assortment of advertisements and bills that passes for mail these days, an air mail envelope.  And the handwriting I was sure was my brother Rob's. A real letter is a rare treasure! I opened it as soon as I got into my car and it was indeed from Rob. He had sent a short letter along with an enclosed tribute to Mum's old and dear friend, Trudy Cluderay, I have written about her now and again on this blog and always made a point of visiting her when I was in Alvechurch. Rob told me that she had died recently at the age of a hundred and one, when we last spoke on the phone, and said that he had saved the tribute that was published in the church of St. Laurence's newsletter: The Grapevine, which is delivered to all the villagers monthly.  Rob signed off his letter by saying that he really must do better than a letter every thirty years or so!  To read the tribute to Trudy, you can ...