Death

Over the past several weeks I've felt surrounded by death. It started with a woman named Jo Norton, who out of the blue had a brain aneurysm and bleeding that couldn't be stopped. After a tense several days, she seemed to be recovering, then suddenly had another and was gone only a few days later. She left a husband and three children. She also left an incredible legacy (which you can read about here on her friend's blog) of caring for poor, hurting and marginalized people in her community.

I never met Jo, but before any of this happened I already knew of her, and was looking forward to meeting this woman that was so clearly loved and respected by the 24-7 Community with which I'm connected here in England. Her death was sudden, and I have watched with sadness the sense of loss the empty space left in the hearts and lives of those around me that knew her.

Last Saturday evening my Uncle Jim lost his fight with cancer. He put up a good fight, and in the end was surrounded by those he loved most. Losing him has been hard, not just because I loved my uncle and the larger-than-life person he was, but because he was not a man of faith, and I don't know that I'll see him on the other side. I pray that I will, and the reality is that in the end only God really knows who will really be with Him. It's also been hard to be 5,000 miles away from my family and unable to be there to celebrate Uncle Jim's life and share love and support with my aunt and cousins.

Death leaves scars. Even seven years on, it doesn't take much to remind me of the most significant loss I've faced in my life so far. The short and sudden illness and death of Addam, the son of one of my closest friends, was the most devastating thing I've experienced in my life. He was six in early June when he was found to have a brain tumor, turned seven in mid-July and died at the end of August. Thinking about him again prompted me to read some of my old posts. Looking over the words I wrote in last six or seven years I was moved by revisiting some of these thoughts, and found them comforting. I think this one stuck out to me the most. It's one I wrote three years and seven months after we lost Addam.

In conclusion, I don't know what to make of this little season of grieving I find myself in, but I pray God will continue to comfort me and my friends, along with the many others whose lives were touched by Jo Norton and Uncle Jim.