On Thursday last week, at about 8.10 pm Singapore time, Auntie Sheila, the lady who gave me my first bottle feed and faithfully sent birthday cards every year and showed me how a human could be so close to Jesus Christ, passed away.
Passed away. I think passed on is a more apt phrase. One of my greatest comforts in grief is knowing, without a shred of the spectre of doubt, that she is in heaven. While drifting in and out of consciousness in the Raigmore hospital (the hospital she had worked in for a large part of her life), between Wednesday and Thursday, she murmured that she could see Angels, and said 'Thank you, Lord Jesus, for all you have done. I'm so glad it is time. I am in heaven. I can see the Lord... Jesus, thank you.'
I can hear her voice when she said that last part. It was something she said all the time.
I kept thinking about the text message I sent her when I found out she had gone into hospital. She never saw it. It's strange but I assumed that she would, in this day where every one has their phone with them. Whatsapp crosses continents, phone calls pierce space and time. But you can't bring your phone with you when you die. I wish I had replied her previous text earlier. I wish I'd called her.
I went for lots of runs. I realised that Auntie Sheila, who had had a hunch back and hip operations and always walked with a slight shuffle and her hand on a wall or an arm to steady herself, can run in heaven. I imagined her running to the rims of clouds, peering over into Singapore, New Zealand, England, Scotland, all the places and people with hearts that mourn for her.
Thursday and Friday nights were pretty much spent curled up on my bed crying and trying not to wake Tim up. Even now, pangs of sadness creep up on me at the strangest times - while I'm singing a worship song, while I'm doing a cool down stretch after a run, when I hear anyone say 'shepherd's pie', or 'treasure', when I spy a birthday card from her poking out of the piles of paper on my desk. Every lament is a love song.
On Saturday at Desaru, just after we arrived, Mum went to sit on the beach while Tim and Dad played table tennis. When our room was ready, I walked over, and she was so beautiful, sitting, back straight, looking out to sea.
I sat, with my head tucked into the space between her head and shoulder (I wonder if God creates children in a way that they fit into their parents laps and arms and neck spaces like puzzle pieces?) and she told me, she imagined this is what Auntie Sheila saw in that strange limbo between heaven and earth that she was in for a while - a sunny horizon, the waves crashing, wind blowing in her eyes and making her squint a little, and then the figure of Jesus appearing , walking on the water towards her saying, 'Come on, it's time to go.'
Part of me knows her soul is finally in the place her heart has been yearning for her whole life. Another part of me just wants to hear her say 'Hello treasure, lovely to see you' again so so so much. I miss her.
"It had been a long day, and I don’t mind saying that I cried a little bit. There is nothing wrong with crying at the end of a long day."
- Lemony Snicket, When Did You See Her Last?
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