Reflection
Reflection for Remembrance-tide.
At this time of year we are all thinking in terms of remembrance of one kind or another. I am writing this on 31st October, Halloween, All Souls. Tomorrow will be All Saints. Many of us will, by now, have begun to wear our poppies with pride. Some of us will be attending Remembrance parades of one sort or another on 11th November and most churches will be marking the season with a special service on Remembrance Sunday – this year on 13th November.
My own personal annual remembrance season really begins on 1st October which is the anniversary of the death of my son, Richard, who died on that day in 1987 at the age of 14. He had been fighting cancer for nearly 3 years when, about a year before his death, the doctors found that the cancer, which had been in remission for some time, had become systemic and offered him further treatment but no guarantee of success. They told him and us that without treatment but with good palliative care he would probably have one year left. His initial experience of treatment involving both medicines and radiation had been very traumatic and after much discussion and prayer Richard himself made the decision to take the latter option. He did, indeed, have a pretty good year, and it was ensured that he would live as normally as possible. Richard had come to a very deep faith and only weeks before his death he returned to school after the summer holidays and was openly talking to friends and teachers about what lay ahead. One of his friends told us that during those few remaining weeks Richard had said to him, “I know where I’m going when I die. Do you?” Richard believed that he was “going home” to his maker. The stone over his ashes in the church yard at St. Brelade in Jersey simply says, “Gone Home”.
I recently came across the following poem from Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica quoted by Esther de Waal in her book The Celtic Vision which seems particularly pertinent:
I am going home with thee
To thy home! to thy home!
I am going home with thee
To thy home of winter
I am going home with thee
To thy home! to thy home!
I am going home with thee
To thy home of autumn, of spring and of summer.
I am going home with thee,
Thou child of my love,
To thine eternal bed,
To thy perpetual sleep.
I am going home with thee,
Thou child of my love,
To the dear Son of blessings,
To the Father of grace.