The Mysteries

Yesterday was the 17th of the month and I spent it with my Mum. In the shower, of all places, I prayed for Arthur and asked God to care for him, and to let Arthur know I still remember him, and that I am trying hard to get on with life. I said I was sorry I did not care for him better, that in the last days I did not spend every minute with him that I could, that I got too tired and that I was not always there when he wanted me to be. I asked God through Jesus Christ to care for Arthur.

I thought about life and death, and the fear I have that my religion is wrong and there is nothing after death. It is the logical and scientific way, but it is so final and frightening. I do not understand how it can be though. It does not make sense that something as complicated and mysterious as life can just stop and all that we think and understand just stops. We must, I believe, transcend our bodies, because we are more than our body, which is limited in its existence. There are Mysteries to which we mere mortals aspire but cannot know fully in this life.

So my understanding is that Arthur is beyond my earthly reach, but I am not beyond his, that he has an awareness of me, but he is in the light of eternal love.
 
It does not dampen my longing, though. I long to go home, to go back. I am two calender months from when Arthur died, and my grief is still a frightening lake of dark water. If I go in too far, I cannot see the bottom and the other side is shrouded in mists. I fear I will float across the water, bobbing up and down as waves engulf me, and never see the shore again.

I could grieve and grieve and grieve until there is no more to be wrung from my wretched soul. What happens then? Where is Arthur in my life if I am not grieving for him?

Dear God, I miss his touch, his voice, his smell. After Arthur died, when I took the pillow from under his head, the little cylinder-shaped pillow he always asked to be put under his neck, it was warm with the last warmth his body ever shared. I held it to me and cried to the nurse. "It is warm, when it is cold he really will be gone."

I want to feel my husband's warmth next to me in my bed. I long to hold him close and feel his skin on mine, I long to touch him and hold him. I want to hear his strong heart, the heart that just kept going when all of his body was failing around it, the heart that loved me so.

Love is a Mystery.

Pillows

Pillows and cushions are the casual labour of a household. We use them and discard them as the need arises. We can spend ages choosing covers, matching with the curtains or decorating them and then we stick them around the place ready to grab. They can line hard edges of a chair, stop a baby from rolling over or soften a hard floor for the unlucky who miss out when butts outnumber seats. A pillow-case can even be made into a girl's dress.What's better than hitting a pillow to relieve stress or the fun of a pillow fight?

 We cry our tears into pillows and dream our dreams on them.

There they sit waiting until we need them.

A time comes when pillows become essential to your existence. A little one to raise the feet to help prevent swelling, one under each hip to ease the pain in the coccyx, a couple to raise your head to see the TV and an essential wedge cushion to raise the upper body to ward of fluid on the chest, which can lead to deadly pneumonia, these all are needed for a comfortable and safe position. You are too weak to reposition yourself so your helper has to get the pillows and cushions just right.

Your life is your pillow.