My mother died at the end of autumn, my father a month later. It was, literally, a winter of grief.

People kindly ask me how I am, with a tone and pause in their voice indicating that their question is more a compassionate reference to these events in my life than a general greeting.

My first response is to say, “I don’t really know,” or, “It’s hard to tell.”

The difficulty is I didn’t get a dress rehearsal or a practice run. We never do.

My parents did, however, enjoy longevity, relatively good health, a wide range of friendships and an abundance of the good gifts of their Creator. Only in the last year or so did the ninety years of wear and tear begin to really take their toll.

The best way to describe these last months is by saying that I am unexpectedly hit by successive waves of grief and gratitude.

The grief was understandably intense in the first days and weeks. Images of Mum’s frail, bony, vanishing body, fighting for every breath, would roar into my mind like flood waters.

Or the image of her corpse an hour after her death with a massive bruise down the side of her once vibrant, now lifeless face, the result of a hard fall days before. The fall broke a rib and shallowed her already busted breathing. These images would catch me unexpectedly in quiet unguarded moments and I would struggle for composure.

It was a little different with Dad. I was determined to be there at the end. And I was. I watched his body shut down over the inside of a week. I spent hours at his side reading Banjo Patterson and the Bible. Patterson’s poetry is now indelibly linked with memories of Dad’s last months and weeks living between a bed and a chair.

The grief is easing. But I catch myself thinking that I must ring Mum and tell her about such and such, or it will be good to see Dad on Saturday and ask him to fill in the gaps about certain relatives or episodes in my childhood, and his.

My parents were veteran movie-goers, (at their age they were veterans at everything) right up until the end. I knew the movies they liked and disliked. I’ve seen a few new movies since their deaths. I’ve noticed now how I process them through the grid of what Mum and Dad would have liked about them. Every movie has been accompanied by the sadness of how much I will miss not sharing the enjoyment of chatting with them about it.

I can’t help but keep flogging myself with a recurring regret. If I had known that the hour or so I spent on the Saturday before Mum’s death would be our last time together, that the conversation we had would be the last we would have together, I would have stayed longer.

“Why didn’t I stay another hour, or two, the night, all week?” I keep saying to myself. Where was I going that was so important? Why was I always in such a hurry?

Why am I always in such a hurry, rationing the hours for this task and that deadline? Yes. Yes, I know. Life is full of commitments and important responsibilities. But these were my mother’s last days. What could be more important than that?

Observing grief in others as well as myself has also been part of the experience; Helen’s grief, my sister’s grief, our children’s grief and Mum and Dad’s close and caring friends.

Last week my older daughter sent me the text of a speech her first-born and our oldest grandchild gave to his school class. Campbell, aged 8 is in class 3U, which I suspect doesn’t stand for ‘Under-achievers’ (remember I am his grandfather):

Let me tell you a story. In May and June my Great Grandma & Great Grandfather died 4 weeks apart. We called them Charlie and Bet-Bet – but their real names were Alf and Betty. They were married for 66 years. Charlie was a prisoner of war of the Japanese.  It was very hard and many of his friends died. Bet-Bet didn’t know if he was alive.  He came home when the Japanese lost the war.  Bet-Bet was recorded on radio when she was running to meet his ship.  She must have felt very excited.  Charlie must have been very tired and very sore. After Charlie got back from war he had a job as a tailor that makes men’s clothes.  He worked at the same place until he finished working. Bet-Bet was a secretary for a company that made sewing machines.  They both worked very hard. They had 2 children, 7 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren. After they stopped working they had a house on the water north of Sydney.  Charlie loved to fish and he had a boat. When I was 5 I marched with my Grandfather, who was Charlie’s son, in the Anzac Day March in the city. I felt very proud and also very sad for the people who died in the war.  I wore medals that belonged to my other Great-Grandfather who was an Anzac.  The medals felt very heavy but I still felt proud. Charlie and Bet-Bet were very kind and were always interested in me.  I liked their back yard because there was lots of room to run around.  Bet-Bet used to always give us chocolate coins and we now call them Bet-Bet money. After they died I was given some special things to remember them by.  I have a crystal hedgehog and a glass ball that was always something I liked to look at in their house.
Charlie died 4 weeks after Bet-Bet.  When Bet-Bet died he was very miserable and sad.  He loved her so much. I will miss them because they loved us a lot.  I think it’s like an imaginary cup of water for how people love each other in a family.  When someone dies the level of love goes down.  Some love has come out.

I am comforted by the pithy phrase I picked up decades ago, which, I think (although I would be grateful to be corrected) comes from C.S. Lewis’ own experience of grief, “No pain now, no love then”.

Above all I am comforted by the word of God where we are reminded that for those who are forgiven by Jesus and have the gift of eternal life because of his death and resurrection, our grief is tempered by hope.