"Bugger!" is all I can say.

to brighten the mood - spring is coming. These were on our lawn. 

Since retiring and worshipping at the little Presbyterian Church here, we have got to know a lovely, quietly spoken, gentle man who lives alone. He has been a bachelor all his life working as a draftsman. He lives with diabetes and the early stages of Parkinson's disease. 
He and I have similar theological perspectives and have often chatted about our faith journeys. Also since I am essentially a shy guy who works hard to push my boundaries, I understand and appreciate this man's quiet lack of confidence and hesitancy, that is where I come from.  We both like being bits of loners, but we have enjoyed each other's company. He has taught himself how to play the pipe organ. He designed and built a beautiful boat and had promised to take me for a ride in it. In spite of his quiet uncertainty, he was in fact, a very clever man. 

Last week he had the misfortune to discover a friend of his dead in her house. She had Alzheimers and he had lovingly kept an eye on her since her husband's death earlier this year. He would ring her each morning, and this particular morning she had not responded. When he rang us to tell us about this experience last Wednesday we invited him to come for the evening meal. We listened to him tell us what happened and reflect upon it, but we also found ourselves chatting about life easily and warmly. I was pleased because he seemed to relax in our company.
He was not at Church yesterday and I was not too worried because I knew his deceased friend's relatives would be in town and he could be busy with them. I also knew that the preacher we had for the day was not our favourite and that he may have avoided coming for that reason. At church though, others told of instances when he had been found in the beginnings of a diabetic coma. We began to be concerned because he had said that he would see us at church. We made attempts to contact him at his house where his car was still in the driveway, and by repeated phone calls. We were not able, but were not that despairing, thinking others may have visited him and taken him somewhere. We were not certain of his plans so did not feel we could call the police to break into his house.

Today we heard that they had found him dead in his house, I assume from some sort of diabetic event. I have tried to do stuff, but have found that numbing distracting feeling of grief demotivating me. Every time I have thought of him and his friendship today I have just said, "Bugger!" I have lost yet another friend out of my life. "Bugger" is the only appropriate word. I am sad. Getting old is not easy, sadness seems to be a recurring experience. Since coming home from our trip to the UK I have now lost three fellow, friendly companions on the journey of life. Bugger! 

"Not too bad for an old man."

Who is that old grey haired man looking into the distance?
(At Oban Scotland) 

Coming toward the end of the pathway of life. (At Oban)

When people ask me the question, "How are you?" one of my stock phrases which I use too often is, "Not too bad for an old man!" I want to share two interesting aspects about getting old. 
You have to stop living life in the future.
I am reading a novel, a bit of a contrived novel because it is written by the New Testament scholar, Marcus Borg. It really is a theology book in novel form.... quite a good effort. One of the characters is talking about his life. "Turning fifty was no big deal - I was becoming established... writing books...being noticed.... But the approach of sixty is different. When I was growing up sixty was old - it really was. ..... I think I have lived my life in the future - that goes with ambition, you know. Fulfillment is in the future - life will be good when I've made a name for myself .... But what's the future when you're getting close to sixty? It seems to me that sixty and older is about decline." (Putting Away Childish Things - Marcus Borg.) At sixty six I can identify with that. I can no longer run as I used to. When I do I am slow and ungainly.. I will never have that feeling of floating over the surface, the exhilaration of it all again. I still enjoy a sex life but my orgasm is a whimper compared to what used to happen and it takes me all night to do what I used to do all night.... I will never regain that sexual power and passion I once had... the best of my sex life is over. I ran a Church and there was always the possibility of new people, new programs, a great sermon ... always a future dream... now I sit in the back pew listening to lousy preaching. I had new jobs and new dreams but what is there to look forward to at sixty six?  When I lay my head down on the pillow to go to sleep I will often purposely think of something positive in the future as my last thought before I drift off. I am used to thinking of such things as the creative opportunities in a service I am planning; a half marathon I am working towards; a special night off with my wife; a project at Church I can look forward to with its possibilities or some other positive future possibility.  Lately with my wheezy chest, the natural decline and uncertainty of health and the ongoing, seemingly endless challenges of night shelter "stuff", I find it more difficult to find positive thoughts to go to sleep with. "The future" seems cloudy, short and uncertain.  The character in the book says he was learning to live in the present and to enjoy the present. I am not sure that it's the total answer, I still think it is good to dream and plan, but it is an issue. As you age your future dreams are limited by decline and limited time. You have to change your "reason for being" somewhat. I have a new admiration for people I know or have known who face adversity and the decline of abilities with fortitude and cheerfulness. I often think to myself, "What on earth can they look forward to? Yet they remain positive." Please God let me learn that skill.
Accumulated grief...
One other thing about getting older is that you have accumulated grief. Lots of people you have known have died. Lots of people who have been in your life have moved on, physically to other places or for a number of reasons, friendships or closeness you once had have ceased or changed.  I was in the brewery where I am chaplain the other day and walked passed the door I used to turn into to see a friend. He died just a little over a year ago. This day, as I often do, I felt a tinge of sadness at the remembrance of him. "I would no longer have those conversations" hit me with a new sadness. Down the street I bumped into a man who is a church elder in the church I recently retired from. We had shared a lot together over the years I was there. He was the one I had worked most closely with. I love him.  I talked with him in the street and he told of working hard in the Church that still has not really replaced me.  The Church and its work was top most in his thoughts, but it was the last thing I wanted to talk about. Our friendship has changed! We are drifting apart. We are not part of each others' lives any more... and that is sad. It is a bereavement.  I drive around areas of town and I see the houses of people who were dear to me in my life. They have died and others live there now. I feel sad, they were part of my life but are no longer there. The older you get the more sadness, the more "goodbyes" you have said, the more changes you have been through, the more often you have experienced grief. Somehow we carry a certain load of accumulated grief. It is not life destroying, but it is something I never realised when I was a young person wondering why older people often stayed silent and looked into the distance.

Reminders of my Father.

Today as I walked around Carlisle I came across two reminders of my father.

• There is an old 18th Century house and one of the information boards pointed out the ornate lead down pipes. My father had two "London City Guilds" plumbing text books. (I had stored them while I was in Australia in the 70's and they got damaged) In those text books there was information about how to make those type of downpipes. Plumbers, at one time, did all sorts of fancy work including the lead work in stained glass windows, and dad's old historical text books had training data about all this type of work. Dad did a lot of work with lead pipes in his time as a plumber, I remember helping him "wipe" lead joints. He would have been interested in these pipes.
• Secondly we visited the Carlisle Castle where there is a bit of a military museum. In a shed I noticed an artillery gun. I went over and looked at it. I said out loud to my wife, "I wonder if it is a 25 pounder?" A man standing near said, "Yes" and pointed out the plate on the chassis that indicated it. My dad fired and was in charge of 25 pounder artillery units during WWII. He would have been interested.

Sometimes something makes you miss someone even when they have been gone 46 years!

Good Grief...

I am learning again the lessons of grief and what it feels like.... It is over two weeks since my friend died but still I feel it. I have known these feelings and read about them before but it does not stop you sensing them all over again. Here are some a grieving person feels.

Loneliness....
I was talking to a firefighter today telling him that I went to Australia to a friends funeral. "Gee.. that's a long way to go for a funeral!" he said. It does not matter how understanding people try to be, only the grieving person knows the relationship they had with the loved one. It is impossible to describe what a person means to you, in fact you don't know yourself until they are not there. So you feel incredibly lonely in your grief. It is, in one sense, something only you can endure, because others did not have that same link. Because of this you feel alone.

Darkness...
Life seems to be a waste of time. You come back and work but where as once you worked with a sense of hope, you have this sense that, "What's the use?" Life was once beautiful, now it seems black. Once it had meaning now you feel like saying, "Why care, we all end up dead anyway?" Life seems so short, it seems to have come and gone for you and your lost one, in a flash. "We are nothing but grass." suggests a biblical passage, "here one day and gone the next".

Emotionally exhausted...
I was visiting firestations today talking with people. Everything was OK but I just felt like I had had enough. I left a firestation and began to drive to the next... I thought "No.... I just can't be bothered relating to one more group of people!" I am at the moment trying to get together enough emotional strength to face a night at the drop-in centre. Somehow you are just tired... and wake up tired... not wanting to meet people. Trying to get creative in preparing a worship service, I feel like I am dragging the chain. I would love to have the time to go bush.

These are just three of the feelings I am experiencing. I guess I will "build a bridge" but apart from anything else its is a refresher course for me on the experience of "grief". I have these feelings when Ian was "just a friend" who actually lived a long way away from me. I was not related to him, married to him or in regular contact. I cannot imagine how his widow Curly is feeling.

People about me don't have time to talk, life goes on as normal for them. I remember feeling this long ago when my dad died. I wanted to yell "Stop the world!" ... but the reality is "Life goes on"... and in time I will adapt. I may not get the time to talk, but I can blog out into the mysterious cyberspace. That's better than nothing.

A couple of thoughts on "Friendship" from my mum's beside booklet.

The light of friendship
is like the light of phosphorus -
seen plainest when all around is dark. (Crowell)

I guess that means when life is dark you find out who your true friends are.

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world,
and the best that we find in our travels
is an honest friend. (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Photo: Heading toward Green Peak in the Silver Peaks area. Where I would love to be right now.