Читать книгу Endearing Pain - Colleen Peters - Страница 12

April 2008

“Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs?”12

It’s April 7, and I have just returned from a breathtaking and life-giving run. Yes, I am still running, and so very happy to be able to do so. Running outdoors in all seasons is one thing that has not changed while so many other things have. The last ten months have been full and fast, owing largely to the buying and selling of houses, followed by moving, renovations and quasi-unpacking. We started looking at houses over a year ago and took possession of our new house at the end of August. I’ve been in no rush to unpack and there remains much to do before we are settled in, including more renovations this spring and summer.

Having said that, I must also tell you how very content I am here, and grateful for God’s permanence in the transience of life. The idiosyncratic nature of time loomed large in my experience this past year—one day a blur and the next a slow trickle of events. We’re simply not wired for time are we? Having so much time on my hands, I find myself thinking about it often, and the longer I ‘swim’, the stronger my sense that time is less of a river and more of an ocean, and that how I choose to live and attend to each moment is a weighty decision.

“Be attentive to time . . . nothing is more precious. This is evident when you recall that in one tiny moment heaven may be gained or lost. God, the master of time, never gives the future. He gives only the present, moment by moment, for this is the law of created order, and God will not contradict himself in his creation.”13

I have experienced much happiness since moving to Riverview. I’ve felt drawn to pay attention to birds, and clouds and skies, to faces, to the heavens and their lights both great and small, and to silhouettes. These are some of the seemingly random things I’ve felt compelled to notice since the fall, and in doing so I’ve stumbled happily upon God’s coming in arresting ways and in unexpected places.

I recently discovered that for quite some time now I’ve been living with the false assumption that most of my acquaintances know that I’m not teaching anymore. I was granted disability last May when it became evident that teaching was no longer feasible for me. So rather than teaching this year, I donned a chauffeur’s cap in September to take the children to school and back each day. The boys and I dropped the girls off at 8:15am (Victoria’s in grade 12, Renee in grade 10) and then Jackson, Nicholas and I had 45 minutes before the bell rang at Laura Secord School, where they’re finishing grade six this year. The boys and I spent that half hour before school at Omand’s Creek park in our old neighborhood.

On cloudless days during the winter months (and we had many!), our goal was to reach the top of ‘Hobbit Hill’ before the first rays of sun did. The view across the river buoyed our spirits long into the day, even on the coldest days during Advent.

Winter promise hanging in the air over silent river.

Behind stark branches deep in sleep, You speak this Season’s hope.

Word of promise spoken from eternity, there’s life in death.

For One has come, and comes anew each day,

brings life and light to things dead and cold.

Shortly after the first snow fell, Nicholas found a large flattened appliance box on the hill (i.e. refrigerator carton) and five days a week that box careened down ‘Hobbit Hill’ and ‘Penguin Chute’ at break-neck speeds, with the boys and I hanging on for some screaming good rides. We incurred only minor injuries and sore stomachs from laughing so hard.

I also joined the boys for lunch every day up until the Christmas holidays. We’d have a picnic in Aubrey Park, and only had to eat in the van two or three times when our fingers were too cold to hold the sandwiches. My boys liked to guess which day I might arrive with a thermos of warm soup. After eating, we’d swing and swing to our hearts’ content under a careless blue bowl pouring sun down on us. These lunch hours with my boys brought me huge delight, and even though it’s been good all around to have them eating lunch with friends since January, I must say that I do miss those noon hours. Three weeks ago, we bid a fond farewell to our makeshift sled, burying it under the footbridge, and resumed our morning tree climbing and bird watching. We are happy to see the Canadian geese returning, and to hear our own joie de vivre echoed in the vibrant spring chorus at Omand’s Creek.

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and the purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”14

The last year also brought the deaths of friends and family, both expected and unexpected. These farewells were naturally surrounded by immense sadness, and yet also revealed the rich aspects of Christian community that illness, tragedy and death can conjure. A distant cousin, who travelled to Winnipeg for a funeral, alluded to this richness by suggesting that while many things separate us, we all have a strong sense of our Home. And for me, with that strong sense of Home, comes an ever-present Homesickness.