A year or three ago our calendar would be oft reflected upon, longingly gazed at, impatiently glared at and resignedly sighed at. In particular days alongside which were written such things as BRS1415ALC, BHM0610IBZ or PH 1945 Armorique Roscoff, Pont Aven, PH 1345 Santander that one only on a Sunday. Such events were legion, anticipated with increasing excitement, even involving planning and packing for one of us.
For a year or two it became the repository for hospital appointments around which everything else had to fit. Trips became noticeably absent not because they didn't happen, although flying and ferrying ceased, but because they were always a last minute event, taken as opportunity arose. But the calendar remains as it always has, a site for reminding us of what may lie ahead. In that it remains a source of inspiration, delight and eager anticipation.
We are so fortunate in life to have been the endless recipients of the company of the good and the great. I don't believe in coincidence, luck, chance or fortune nor do I believe that any experience is wasted. I do believe in what used to be called Divine Providence and it has always been that we have been exceptionally well catered for. As I've often said, gratitude just doesn't do it justice but then, what does?
From people long passed like Peggy who would look slightly sideways at me when I was speaking and with hardly a movement, and only ever once with words would appraise me of exactly how it was going. I have never forgotten those words, either. Then there was Trevor. One of life's gifts is to have known him. Always encouraging, never blindly so, always building, always wise beyond measure. Never more so than at one of life's lowest ebbs when, with his wife a life was put into context, put back together again with a gentle godliness that you don't come across very often. Just the once in my case. And then within a week or two he was taken to heaven. He was kept going long enough, just long enough to be there when I needed him. No coincidence. Not a chance of that. Another example of divine providence working out every day.
It carries on and will continue to do so. Nearly every day we are privileged to have someone visit, frequently multiples of someones. There are those who visit almost daily, local, usually retired who just pop in and, I hope, enjoy the coffee or tea. The conversation flows with ease, the gaps are comfortable and if they see me on a bad day there's tomorrow, or there has been thus far.
Then there's the occasional visitor, not always local as in on your doorstep local and often still working. It is so easy to become embarrassingly unaware of the world of work. People who are still in a rush, people who are still busy and who are aware of so much going on. It is wonderful to be visited by these as you are taken from the now familiar to what was once our experience, too. The excited rush to inform, reaquaint, reappraise, reminisce is such a joy.
There is so much going on that once you are stood back from the immediacy of life it is too easy to think that it is the same for everyone. Especially when you reconsider how real the stresses and anxieties are for those still in the crush of the daily grind. Such visitors are a very precious blessing and one is so thankful to them for taking the time from such busyness to spend it with an old bloke who isn't what he once was. Fortunately I can still make coffee and my nearest and dearest is still far more interesting than me so she is well able to add so much more to any visit than mere coffee.
Then there are those whose names go on the calendar. Those who travel some hundreds of miles just to visit us. Names that mean so much, names that once on the calendar give a date meaning. A date looked forward to like holidays once were, only more so. You can buy a holiday but you can't buy a visit from a friend. You can't force anyone to come through the front door or the back. I am in awe that anyone would drive for hours and hours just to visit us. It could be the pasty, the roast lamb or the lasagne, indeed I'd have travelled a while to visit me last weekend had I known that the red was so special, but I didn't and it was. That's the trouble knowing nothing about red, bar the colour the first sip was a wow moment. So wow that the daughter in Amsterdam this weekend had to be txtd to find out why it was so wow. Mt.Etna has a great deal to do with it as has the fact that you have to go there to get it.
That kind of visceral experience of wow is how I get whenever anyone drives so far to spend time with us. I do wish we had a reserve of Mt.Etna red to offer everyone but we haven't so I'm just thankful that they take us as we are, even if I'm rubbish the cooking will be great, the red not so special in future.
It's always telling, too, that invariably when friends phone phrases like, if you don't mind, if it's no trouble, if we won't be in the way, we won't stay long and (looking at you Rob) I can't see why anyone would want to see me . . . . They do, we do. You don't measure visits, you don't quantify them, they lift you up, you look forward to them with immense anticipation and you remember them with overwhelming gratitude and great joy but most of all you give thanks to the God of the bible, the Divine Provider for His unbridled and umerited providence.
This is divine providence, friends from miles away or just around the corner. People prepared to give up their time to share their lives with others. Even us. There are no special moments in life, just special people you share moments with.
Our calendar is oft reflected upon, longingly gazed at, impatiently glared at and resignedly sighed at. In particular days alongside which are written the names of those who mean so much.
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