I wasn’t going to blog today, it has been a hard week again, but decided I needed to. Blog I mean. I need to write how this past week has affected me and I am sure, many others on this group. After last week’s posting, I learned of the death of a man I had grown to admire, envy, and yes, love. I never met him but felt I had known him forever. Mark Bradford, wrote on a post I placed in the group, 2 plus years ago and after that wrote regularly by PM or by commenting on my page. He seemed to understand me in a way many don’t. He never gave advice but had a way of letting me understand myself better than I did. He felt I was a voice for partners of PC sufferers and encouraged me to continue writing my journey ‘warts ‘n all’, to help other women and to enlighten men who don’t always understand how PC affects their wives and Partners. He always validated my words, especially when I doubted myself, which is often.Mark always had an encouraging way of saying something and is one of the main reasons I continue to blog. After commenting on my writing skills, he told me of his book, the one he was writing and I shared my success re my own books. He was very interested and this resulted in his reading my autobiography. His words after doing this, were so warm and kind that it seemed to bring us closer. He said he could understand me even more, after reading of the life I had, than he did before. Mark was a generous man, he sent me 3 cross pendants, that he said he had asked Sharon to make especially for us, mine having extra beads. Symbols of love he called them, one for David, one for me and one for my brother who sadly has since lost his fight. Tony, my brother, had his under his pillow and in his casket when he was laid to rest. David’s is at the side of his bed and mine is under my pillow every night. Treasures forever. We commented regularly on each other’s blogs. I found his, full of courage, enlightening and powerful. His faith shone through every word. He was, as I am in my blogs, honest and open and I will miss reading his words.We both used humour where appropriate because we both knew its value.
Mark’s faith made me envious. I had lost mine years ago but as a child, I had such strong belief and faith, one of the things that helped me through the horrors of my childhood. But after years of asking God to stop these things, to help me and nothing happened, I felt he hadn’t been listening. My faith diminished. Mark never criticised this, the fact that my faith had died. He said he understood. His courage and strength were endless and so admired by many, me especially. He never seemed afraid. Never said ‘it’s not fair’ as I did when he told me of his being terminally ill. I wrote a blog about this, the unfairness of his dying, a while ago and he shared it many times. As he did with the blog about PC being the ‘couple cancer’. But he never sounded angry or scared. I think that was his faith, helping him cope with the unimaginable. He believed in God. He believed in Jesus and as I did as a younger person, prayed to Jesus. His belief was so strong, his Faith so strong, he knew ‘it’ would be alright, although I never did. He talked of ‘going home’. To be ‘in the arms of Jesus’. He believed in Heaven as a place he would be welcomed, be loved and be free. So why would he be afraid? The definition of faith is ‘Complete trust or confidence in someone or something’. Mark believed in the something, the someone, the some place, that he knew was waiting for him. I used to have these beliefs but over the years, years of asking God to help me, to make things easier and right, nothing changed and my belief died.
Since knowing this wonderful man I felt proud to call my friend, I began to pray again. I admit to not being sure anyone is listening, but pray I do. Many years ago, I went for an interview with a newspaper, as a journalist. There were 4 candidates at the time.Part of this interview was to write a story on our meaning of the word Faith. I thought back to how I had felt as a child. Believing in an entity that I couldn’t see, God, Jesus. Although I couldn’t see them, I believed at first, they were there. I had been a member of our local church choir for many years, been to Sunday school, confirmed etc. I believed in a God, someone, or something that we couldn’t see. The story I wrote that day, went as follows. ‘A man called his son into the house and shouted up to him that he was in the cellar. The boy called down to his father to ask what he wanted. The father needed some help and asked his son to jump into the dark cellar. The boy shouted that it was dark and he couldn’t see anything ,just a dark void, that he couldn’t see his father. The man replied ‘jump and I will catch you’. His son re iterated that he couldn’t see him. The father replied, ‘Jump son and I will catch you’. The boy, trusting his father jumped. He was caught. ‘ The moral was that even though he couldn’t see his father, he trusted what he had been told and jumped anyway. He had faith in his father and the fact that he would be okay. My meaning of Faith.
As last weeks blog told, I have many sick animals here currently, I also have health issues and am awaiting tests. The imminent loss of my little dogs preys on my mind. I think as I have said, you begin to grieve when you know someone is dying. Begin to grieve when people change and you grieve the person they were. As I have learned in my work, people grieve for the strangest of things and the grief is real. Animal bereavement for me is a huge thing and I know I will have to grieve for many of mine this coming year. Having a little of my faith restored, will, I hope, help me here. Mark’s faith and his happiness always seemed amazing to me. Although he knew the outcome of his PC was not good, he was always smiling. Always able to see the funny side of most things. That is something I find quite wonderful, how those , like Mark, who have this strength and faith are always happy. Always smiling. In his videos, concerts etc. he was smiling like nothing was wrong. In his blog, so upbeat although his illness was progressing. A wonderful man indeed. It must have been his huge undying faith that made this possible. Having said all of that, that sometimes we grieve before someone has left us, because we know what to expect,I hadn’t begun to grieve for Mark, knowing he would leave us soon, even knowing his death was imminent. I think part of me always thought, something would happen and he would live. I never really believed the post would come from Sharon. Never really believed Mark would die. Silly I know, because he had made no secret of that fact but still I didn’t believe.He said once, that some of his friends wouldn’t like his blogs , especially when they talked of his dying, or his death. No, you were right Mark, we didn’t but we did respect everything you said about this. Although our friendship was only virtual, our mutual love and respect, as two human beings on the same journey but from different perspectives, was very real. Mark had that way about him, I am sure others, many others, felt, like me, that they knew him well. So along with everyone who loved him, I will grieve his passing and pray for his way forward, whatever that might be. He has now I hope, gone to be welcomed into the arms of Jesus as he often said he would.
For all of you who grieve the passing of Mark, I send a warm hug. His legacy is one I am very proud to own.
Grief is a strange emotion. When I began my current career path, I realised how we all grieve at times in our lives, for many things as well as people we love, or knew. The grief for a lost loved one, mum, dad, sister, brother or child. I have known this, the loss of a child.The worst grief. When a client comes to me for Berevement therapy, one of the first things they ask is, how long will it take. I always say, grief will take as long as it takes. I have lost friends and family in these past PC accompanied years. The heaviest was losing my big bear, my brother Tony. I know Grief very well, goes with my age group I suppose. I still miss Tony, go to ring him, have often actually pressed his number on my phone and it hit me. Like losing him all over again. And it will go on, I am sure.
The loss of my best friend, at least, best in womanhood, in 2012 hit me like nothing had before. She always said the right thing, put me right many times and made me understand things in a different way. A good friend. Losing my first horse Evening Star after 23 years , still hurts and I still want to cry, but I don’t. I have grieved the loss of too many animals to write about here and each one, the grief is different. But grieve I must.
Grief , I believe, never actually leaves us. We don’t move on we just form our lives around it. Willie Nelson has recently brought out a song and the words say : ‘Losing someone you love is not something you get over, it’s just something you get through’. So true and the ‘getting through ‘ can take a long time.
We grieve the passing of most things, but if we are able, we pick out the memories and comfort our grief-stricken hearts with those.
There is a worse grief in my mind, worse than grieivng someone who has died.The grieving of someone who is still alive. Losing someone out of your life for whatever reasons, if they were important to you, if you loved them, then losing them is a whole new different kind of grief. One, to my mind, that can’t be healed by anything, even time. That grief can last a lifetime. I know . Losing my daughter, my first-born Lisa, out of my life,has taken its toll on me. Recently,I had hoped we were on our way to getting things, if not back on track, back to her and me at least talking to each other. A misunderstanding of an email, got in the way and now I can’t see a way forward, but pray every night that I will find it. Mums and children should never be estranged.
So remembering everything I have written, everyone I grieve, those who have passed and those still living, I need to take the first step forward, even though I can’t see the whole staircase, as the picture shows, and let my grief travel its own journey, until I feel healed. If I have to accept the losses that can’t be healed by grieving, maybe I can pray for some peace of mind. That’s not a lot to ask, is it?
I have everything written to me, by my friend Mark, my strong minister of his faith and will treasure those along with my pendant. I will grieve his going but with a happiness and hope that his belief of Heaven has been fulfilled. He gave me so much more as I am beginning to see, the biggest being a rekindling of my own Faith, all be it very small at present. Maybe over time, it will grow.
Nite nite Mark and Thank you x.
Thankyou for reading xx
carolannwright 
Such beautiful words.
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Thankyou. Glad you liked it. x
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