Joy

 Joy.

What brings me joy?

Feeling my own face, that I've smoothly shaved; no stubble.

Leaf blowers, noisey lawn mowers and barking dogs.....when mercifully, at long last, they stop!

Quite a few flavours: a good, juicy mango that drips all over my chin. A mocha when it's made properly = dancing between first the sharp bitter coffee taste and then the sweet, sugary chocolate burst. A potato baked in its jacket when it's smothered in butter. Ruth's sweet and sour. Ocean Spray cranberry juice.

A good shower after a sweaty exercise workout.

Remembering Ruth's laugh/giggle.

A kookaburra or even better a group of kookaburras laughing. 

A student with a good answer.

A Spirit led prayer.

A wise insight that is maybe not even new or novel but is appropriate and ministers to the moment.

A compliment that is fitting.

Having someone to care for and someone who cares for me.

Each day is another step closer to home. Each day I can wake up with wonder and excitement asking "Will this be the day?!" Each time I leave home I can wonder if this will be the outing that ends me in my final destination. Will I return to this flat? Will I be driving my car back again on its return journey?   

Thanks But No Thanks

 This isn't theological or logical it's psychological. So it may not make sense. Yesterday I took another baby step forward on my grief journey. Up until this time I could and had mouthed off how I know Ruth is in heaven, how I know heaven is a much MUCH better place than this old earth, how she is ok and better than ok. I even logically, cerebrally but honestly, often said that I was in some ways jealous, envious, I wish I was there! She got there before me. But from that baseline, for the first time I took another step in the right direction. I remembered how I'd often encouraged Ruth if ever she wanted to, to join me on my walks, to come and get exercise. She, in her typically relaxed and gracious way would respond: "No, that's ok. I'm not into exercise. I'm good here. You go off and enjoy yourself." As I set out on my walk yesterday, I once again thought how good it would be to have Ruth come with me on my walk. That led me to remember her preference to stay home. That led me to think how she is "home" truly "home" now and she isn't even remotely attracted to my walk. She's not missing out on anything by staying where she is. She is saying to me again: "No. That's ok. I'm not into that. I'm good here." (Understatement) Wham. Yes. She is really, in the ultimate sense, "o.k.". 

I realise now that the overwhelming focus I had in the past was very self-centred when I thought of Ruth in heaven. It was 90%: "She's not here. She's gone. She's completely cut off from me. She's inaccessible. I miss her. I want her here. That's awful." And maybe 10%: "But heaven is a better place. But she's with Jesus. But there's no crying, sadness, sickness, death, sin, or darkness there. She's at the goal = where I and we all want to be. That's great!"

Yesterday's baby step forward, changed that fraction; reversed the 90% for the 10% and vice versa. I hope I can remain there.

うるさい

 うるさい　(Urusai) = roughly translates to: "noisey" but more like "troublesome" or "annoying".

A short while ago I had an interesting dream featuring Ruth. She was actually nothing like the real Ruth that I know and love but regardless, in the dream, this person was "Ruth". And in the dream she kept on being uncharacteristically noisey. She was disturbing all kinds of people. I had to drag her away so she wouldn't annoy everyone.

When I woke, the dream was unusually clear in my mind. And I suspect there's a meaning here. 

I can't be sure, (after all it was only a dream, right?) but at some level I've reached a point where grieving over Ruth is in some ways うるさい. I just need to grab this grief, drag it off and keep it from annoying too many people (myself included). It might be time I took control, put my foot down and stopped this grief from being a pest.

Stepped Across a Line

 Sunday Sept 21, 2025 over a year and a half after Ruth died, in NEB church I finally took a significant step. Prior to this, every single time I sang: "All my life You have been faithful" or the equivalent, I would add in my head: "Except when You let Ruth die." It seemed to me that God was incredibly faithful. He was the gold-standard of faithfulness. By His standard of perfect faithfulness everything else could be measured as faithful or not. The death of Ruth was the one blip, the one exception to that rule. 

On Sunday, finally, I sang for the first time celebrating, proclaiming God's faithfulness without exception. Sure my mind went back to that event. I remembered that Sunday morning (Jan 14, 2024) in our bedroom where I was and she was when she died. Somehow though, this (first!) time I sang and meant that God was faithful even at that moment. 

I don't understand. I certainly haven't got it all figured out. I can't explain it. Having said all that, I've still taken a watershed step in the right direction. The details can come later. The intellectual specifics can wait. For now I have managed to trust God, ....even in this,....which has been the hardest thing to trust Him in in my entire life. 

I don't know how or why but Ruth was meant to die. Ruth's death at that specific time, in that exact place, is working in some way, for good. Even if it was a failure or an accident, at some other level, it was a positive step, designed by a loving God to bring about a positive end. It's up to me to step by step trust my way to that positive end.

Hindsight

 Oh the cruelty, the cutting clarity of hindsight. From where I stand now, looking back, things look different. I find myself making better choices. I have more hope. I have more objectivity. I have more compassion. I have more patience. I'm wiser. If I had it to do over again today I would do such and such so much better. This is the "advantage" of hindsight. 

And it's possibly, even probably true. 

The mistake of hindsight is to whip myself, to beat myself up, for not having that hindsight back in the past when I actually was confronting the challenge/the trial. Why didn't I.....!? If only I....! How could I not have seen....?!

But that's not fair. That's not valid. That is criticising myself on the basis of information and conditions I did not have. 

At that time in the past, under those conditions, given my circumstances, information, etc. I did the best I could. I didn't deliberately fail or perform substandard. On the contrary, if you were to pop me back into those identical crossroads under exactly the same conditions, even now I would perform/decide exactly the same and I should be content with those decisions. They were made from the best of motives. They were done with the highest intentions. They were "good". They were loving, honourable, courageous decisions.  Not perfect. But the best I could do. 

Now, when I look back, I have more information. I have more health. I have more time. I am not the same person that I was in the past.  

My Grief #3

 Saturday Aug 30, 

I don't think I'm enjoying pain. I don't think I'm a masochist. It certainly is weird though. It hurts but I want to do it. Well, I sort of want to and sort of don't want to. I'm trying to describe a range of things which summon grief. For example: singing the hymn: "Marching to Zion". I just sang that yesterday and immediately I could remember singing it with Ruth. And because it reminded me so vividly of Ruth (I could picture clearly her standing beside me. I could hear her voice.) it was precious and wonderful and there was a heart-felt joy but equally, it hurt it was tragic, it was grief and I wanted to stop.  Weird. 

My Grief (2)

 April 29, 2025 It's been a year and over 3 months since Ruth died on Jan. 14, 2024. On looking back I certainly am in a better place than I was before. I am less overwhelmed with sadness, emptiness, grief, regrets, self recriminations, loneliness etc. Hallelujah! But of course this grief journey is still not fun. 

My most recent insight is that "death" is closely associated in my mind at a very deep level with ultimate failure, punishment. Often that's how "death" is portrayed in the Bible in contrast to "life". (Dt 30:19; Ps 56:13; Prov 2:18; 10:16; 11:19; 13:14; 14:27; Jer 21:8; Jn 5:24; Rom 5:17; 6:23; 8:2,6,10; 1Jn 5:16;) I didn't recognise that a lot of my basic, unsaid, underlying feelings about Ruth's death are tied up with this.

So, as a result, "death" is even shameful, embarrassing.

So, even if I have come to terms with Ruth's dying in many other ways, the underlying premise is that I, and maybe Ruth and maybe God too have ultimately failed. Or God is punishing us. This helps me better understand the cross. That first Easter, when Jesus died must have seemed incomprehensible. I am still struggling to accept Ruth's death as a daughter of God. 

So the Easter event, which turned "failure" inside out; lifting the ultimate failure into victory, is what I want to do with Ruth's death fairly and squarely, solidly, in my thinking. Can I say Ruth's death with my head lifted high, confident? No. I can't do that yet. Can I admit Ruth died, not in an apologetic way or with a sense that people will look down on me as a failure or as being punished, but rather neutrally like I'm merely stating morally neutral facts? No. But perhaps one day....? Or can I even proclaim or trumpet Ruth's death as an act of Divine mercy, a blessing? Is that a hope that is too unrealistic?

May 5, 2025 You know how the effervescent bubbles just appear in your carbonated drink? It was so like that, only the "bubble" was huge. It just appeared. This big love for Ruth. I was out on my walk. Suddenly there it was. I wanted to love her, encourage her, tell her she's my beautiful, hold her, let her know what a treasure she is, assure her everything's alright. It was all so positive. I had so much I wanted to give her. And there was no Ruth, no one I could give it all to. It wasn't sad. Well, .....ok, it WAS sad. But not sad in the inside-wrenching, painful, wounded way it sometimes is. Rather it was just hanging there, this bubble with no place to go.

May 18, 2025  I must be recovering. I still long for Ruth. I want my friend here. I miss her. And it's still more than just a mental ideation. It is visceral. It is emotional. It is gripping. But this longing for Ruth isn't the all encompassing, debilitating, disabling, inescapable, thing it used to be. I can think about this longing. I still have that power of thought. Hallelujah!

June 15, 2025  It seemed like a new experience. For the first time in a long time (in years) my anger and pain levels were down enough so that I felt God loving me. Hallelujah!

June 25, 2025. Maybe one of the big lessons that grief and this whole depression/mental health trial is teaching me(I'm still learning it) is hard to express but it's something about the range of will power. (Is that the right term?) I never suspected that there was a range. I always assumed that everyone was like me. I thought my experience of the world equaled everyone else's in this matter of "will". This is simply not true. I thought we, all humans had a will with which we could decide, choose, determine what we'd do. (more or less).  But through these new experiences, I've experienced first hand that sometimes our will is overwhelmed or just seems to be absent! Whereas before I would have shrugged and just advised others to notice the choices they have and choose wisely, now I see that there are times when we humans actually can't notice the choices we have. That whole arena where options are set before us, may be obliterated; may be a no-show. Through no fault of the person, they simply experience things that they have no control over. Because the very option to choose (to choose anything!) has disappeared, I don't like the term: "will power". That term insinuates that it is something we are strong in or weak in. What I'm learning is that in some mental situations, there simply isn't that stage. The step where a person can choose has vanished. The person is just presented with a fait accompli. The choice has been made for them. The closest situation I can think of is when someone is helping you do something on your computer. Sometimes they will be working through the same process on their gadget. The help is most helpful when your helper's gadget displays exactly the same windows and options as your own. But sometimes there is a discrepancy. Your helper's screen shows an option that is not shown on your screen. He thinks you are both looking at the same thing, but you're not. He tells you to click on the drop down menu in your upper left corner but you don't even have that menu! You don't have the option. I increasingly believe that some people who are suffering from depression or anxiety are like that. They have no window that presents them with options or gives them more information about their depression or anxiety. All they have is the window that is depression and/or anxiety and there is no "X" to exit that window in any corners of that window.