Now that we have come out of Advent and are almost at the end of the Christmas season I find myself locked in January like Janus, looking forward to 2012 and backward to 2011.
I am half way through my planned stay in London.
I was to live with my mother, care for her, for as long as it took.
I left my home to our children, took our youngest with me.
We were to stay at least a year Hubs and I had decided.
Mum lived for four days after my arrival and a whole new world unfolded at my feet as I spent the next six months navigating my grief and unwrapping my memories.
The month of January affords me a breather, a fence on which to sit and catch my breath.
I think of Christ on the cross surveying his earthly family and friends, memories of his years incarnate playing before him. Catching their bewilderment, doubt, anger and disappointment as he prepares to leave them.
The Good News He had brought isn’t looking good at all.
Not yet.
He must die first.
The incomprehensible message of salvation through this Jesus whom they had followed for three years was looking doomed to say the least.
They did not know that they would tirelessly proclaim and be put to death for their belief that their friend, who had walked with them, died, was buried and rose again, absolutely and undeniably is the Way the Truth and the Light.
Only Jesus can get us to heaven.
They didn’t understand as they stood staring up at him helplessly hanging on the cross that He had to die to save the world.
But once they did,
once they witnessed his resurrection,
there was no stopping them.
Fast on the heels of my mother’s death I had entered into a swirl of activity, filling every last second of my day with the mundane and routine,
to stop my mind from dwelling,
to keep my body in constant motion and not felled to the ground, wracked and weary with tears.
I was almost manic in my pursuit of organizing and putting things to rights.
Tying up loose ends, wrestling with a legal system that could not be rushed.
I slogged through weeks and weeks without remembering times of church services, appointments, what I had on hand in my pantry, the fridge or the fruit bowl.
I forgot names and places, phone calls, meals and the time.
I felt I had everything under control and took walks that wound aimlessly around the town, across fields, through woods, down busy high streets, in and out of shops.
Living at the speed of light without pause for thought or reflection.
Deathly afraid to turn around and stare down my adversary lest I crumble into a pile of rubble under the weight of the truth.
Now six months have passed and I am faced with the half-way mark and the reality that I have to prepare to go home,
Where my children and friends live
Where my other life will sweep me up as if I’d never been away
Where I will arrive unspeakably changed
to watch the familiar, now unfamiliar, swirl around me
unbidden and unwanted.
My looking back must stop, I must prepare for my return.
From where I stand I cannot see my way forward, only a fog of ennui that shrouds any joy I may have taken from all the childhood memories scurrying all over my parents’ belongings.
A return date is set and I tell myself,
“One step at a time…”
I am paralyzed. I dig my heels in,
“I am not ready…” I say to the rose bushes.
I go through the motions and as I was making my second cup of tea this morning a pang of homesickness struck me, a dreadful aloneness that frightened me, that reminded me of my days at boarding school.
Was I homesick for America or for my childhood home?
“Is this how the next six months will be?” I wonder aloud to the garden.
I took a deep breath, yoga has been good for that, and remember I no longer need my inhaler.
I need to trust God and be thankful for this time away in reflective prayer.
A whole year to sort through everything, material and emotional.
A whole year without any demands except those I embrace.
I am where God wants me to be and I too must die to my past and rise to my future.