Lighting a candle for someone I love……….

I felt I couldn’t write this piece yesterday with it being Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is all about joy and resurrection and new life. Although the reality for many people – and some people I know – is that they were facing their first Easter without a very special someone there to celebrate with them. And that must have been so very hard.

People were remembering loved ones on Facebook – and in the reality of waking up on a day all about joy with sorrow in their hearts. The start of the Book of Ruth introduces us to Naomi whose husband dies, leaving her in a foreign land with her two sons to raise and protect and care for alone –

Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.  Ruth 1:3

One small factual verse that conveys none of the actual pain and loss and confusion and bitterness and fear and anxiety and deep sorrow that Naomi may have felt every single day. Here’s a passage from my novel ‘Secrets Such As These’ where I explore how it may actually feel. Joanna is in a hospital cafe, pretending to one of the cafe volunteers that her husband is seriously ill.

“But he’s my life. He really is. There is no way I can go on without him. Life will not be worth living without him there by my side. He is my everything. My rock, my strength. My soul mate, my best friend. He would do anything for me, you see. He loves me and I adore him. He texts me every day to tell me that he loves me. Every single day. Since the moment that we met, we have completed each other. We make each other whole. There is no-one else in the whole world who could love me like he loves me. I can’t imagine life without him. I don’t want to imagine life without him. What am I going to do?”
…….Choked with an intensity of emotion she rarely felt, an overwhelming grief for a love she had never had, Joanna did nothing to stop the solitary tear rolling down her nose and splashing onto the table in front of her.
This was so sad. Rosemary did not know what to do. She had no idea how to comfort this desolate stranger. She had no more words to say. A familiar resentment sparked into flame inside her soul. How did God allow such suffering? How did such bad things happen to such good people? It simply wasn’t fair. She knew exactly how Joanna felt. She felt the same way at some point every single day. It was coming up to year ago that she had lost her husband. Lost. How she hated that word. An insubstantial word implying she had carelessly mislaid him some place. Almost a year since the prime reason for her existence had vanished from her life. Since the world that she had inhabited with her husband for forty-two years had fallen apart. Bill and Rosemary had never had children. It had mattered at first, but they were so in love with each other that even without a family of their own, they felt happy and complete. Bill came home for his dinner every day at twelve thirty. Rosemary felt fulfilled keeping their home immaculate and preparing Bill’s favourite meals. She loved to work in the garden, knowing the pleasure she and Bill would derive from it, as they sat companionably on the patio on sunny weekends, doing the crossword together and sharing memories of blissful holidays and significant shared experiences. She missed him so very much. In losing her soul mate, the meaning of her life had evaporated. What did she have to get up for in the morning? What was the point of carrying on? That was why she had enquired about becoming a volunteer. She urgently needed a place to go. She desperately needed a reason to live. The company and the routine helped too. These women had not known Bill. During each shift, she could almost forget that she was alone in life. And each shift done, each day got through, was one less day to survive without her beloved Bill.
So what could she say to this grieving wife? That life goes on? Time heals? This time she chose to say nothing at all and reached for Joanna’s pale, lifeless hand. The two women sat motionless sharing this precious moment in awkward silence, connected by intense emotion and yet unsure of how to proceed.

And then, in another couple of small verses, Naomi’s situation gets a whole lot worse –

The sons married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.  Ruth 1:4-5

No parent should outlive their child. It’s not the natural way of things. I cannot begin to imagine the anguish of this poor woman. She has lost everyone that she cares about. What is left for her to live for now? How will she begin to carry on? How can she make any sense of her tragedy?

We’ll find out tomorrow.

And let’s keep in mind today all those people we know who are living with the anguish and sorrow and confusion (and whatever else they may be feeling right now) of living each day without their special loved one.