I woke to the sound of birds singing. Lots and lots of them. Not sure what types. And other sounds that were not familiar. We're staying at an old house / former dairy farm that offers "homestay" guest rooms. It's a big, old fashioned house. We're in a guest apartment on the ground floor. There's a dining table and some easy chairs, and a remarkable vase with a relief of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. The ceilings are very high and there's an electric fan and aircon. We don't have it on as it is cool in the evenings and even in the daytime, the house with its thick walls seems to stay cool even though it was probably in the mid-20s outside.
The bedroom has some beautiful paintings and then there's a bathroom with a western toilet. Oh thank the Lord for that! I don't think either of us have knees that could manage using a hole in the floor!
There's a beautiful garden with a host of plants growing and trees, including bougainvillea which are so beautiful and colourful. Then there's the Lake. Quite a view. I'll try to post pictures at some point.
The host and his wife are very nice. Several of their house servants are preparing food and clearing it up. Nice to be waited on for a rare occasion.
Well, that's the practical, and a little light reading for you before we get back to the serious biz.
Here let me introduce another person into this story. This is Sandeep (I will post a picture eventually). I was "introduced" to Sandeep by another person I had started writing to via Facebook. To be specific, I started sending messages to churches in Bhopal in the hopes that someone could help us once we got to Bhopal. This fellow wrote back and in the end got me in touch with Sandeep. He is a pastor with the North
India Churches (sorry, not exactly sure about the denomination name) and lives in Bhopal with his wife who is a nursing tutor (training nurses) and their little girl, plus their more or less adopted second daughter who is 16.
Was I ever so surprised to find out that Sandeep has taken a few days leave in order to help us! Talk about kindness, that's one Good Samaritan!
Anyway, Sandeep came over and we spent the afternoon talking, getting to know each other, and making a plan for the next days. He looked over the paperwork and seemed to figure out which hospital we should go to, as I want to visit where Pax died. Then we made plans to get a memorial bench to put in the cemetery. There are two Christian cemeteries in Bhopal, a Catholic and Protestant one. We don't know for sure which cemetery but hopefully when Jo arrives from Goa on Friday, he'll help us find it. (I need to check with Jo before I put more details about him on this blog, so for now I'll call him Jo. I don't like writing about other people without their permission.) Jo took care of Pax's burial, and it is a true answer to prayer for him to be able to come up here.
I showed Sandeep pictures of Pax and we talked about what happened. I am amazingly calm. I think I cried so much and so desperately yesterday that I'm a bit "cried out" but we'll see what tomorrow brings.
I think I need to give some credit again to TCF (The Compassionate Friends) and the Dove Service, as being able to talk about my children and some of the deepest concerns of my heart has somewhat freed me. I can now talk about Pax and what happened without breaking down. Most of all, I can say the words that Pax died. To the people who belong to the school of "move on", "be brave", I think you're missing the point. If we as individuals don't grieve, don't express our grief, however painful and emotional, it doesn't just go away. We might try to lock up the feelings and carry on with our lives, but the emotions aren't gone. They're just held inside, smoldering, like a volcano waiting to erupt. And when little fissures appear in our lives, little breaks along the surface because of other troubles or weak times, then the hot lava or hot gases burst out in shooting, brief columns. Then the volcano quietens down again, but all the time the heat is building under the surface. Eventually it will erupt.
That's what has happened to me in regards to Pax. It's so much better to speak it, to cry it, to move through your bereavement at a natural pace. "Being brave" didn't do me any good. We don't move on (I hate that phrase!) from our loved ones, but we move through our bereavement to the point that we start to adjust to a life without the person we lost.
Well, 30 years on, here I am in Bhopal. I'm sitting here calmly. I'm able to remember Pax, to look at his photos, to share his photos with others. I couldn't have done that if I hadn't spent the past 20 months expressing my grief. Pax has a proper part in my life again, as it should be. Well of course the "should be" is for him to be alive, but that is not something I can make happen.
(As for Catherine, won't she be there when I get back to England? No, she won't. But I thought I'd throw that in just in case you think I'm "doing better" today. There's no "doing better". There's only coping, breathing, continuing moment by moment.)
Back to the present. It was a very good thing meeting Sandeep and I found it very encouraging.
And then the lady of the house came home from teaching in college, and we had a chat, and she took me and Simon for a drive by the lake, and then to the market to get fruit and veg. We're not in the centre of Bhopal but another small township. The market could have been anywhere in India. The smells of the fruit and veg; the street smells; the sound of the honking vehicles; the cars, bikes, scooters and pedestrians weaving through the roads; the cows walking unhindered, bending their heads down to munch on whatever food they find; the small roadside shops; the piles of mis-shapen tomatoes that would be simply thrown away in the UK; the giant lumps of juggary (cane sugar); the brinjal (eggplant), bumpy little cucumbers, small green limes, sweet smelling papayas; all of this could have been anywhere in India and was just what we remembered. It was a feast of memory--sound, sights and smells. There was only one thing new and changed from our experiences of India 30 years ago: A mobile phone shop on the corner of the market.
The bedroom has some beautiful paintings and then there's a bathroom with a western toilet. Oh thank the Lord for that! I don't think either of us have knees that could manage using a hole in the floor!
There's a beautiful garden with a host of plants growing and trees, including bougainvillea which are so beautiful and colourful. Then there's the Lake. Quite a view. I'll try to post pictures at some point.
The host and his wife are very nice. Several of their house servants are preparing food and clearing it up. Nice to be waited on for a rare occasion.
Well, that's the practical, and a little light reading for you before we get back to the serious biz.
Here let me introduce another person into this story. This is Sandeep (I will post a picture eventually). I was "introduced" to Sandeep by another person I had started writing to via Facebook. To be specific, I started sending messages to churches in Bhopal in the hopes that someone could help us once we got to Bhopal. This fellow wrote back and in the end got me in touch with Sandeep. He is a pastor with the North
India Churches (sorry, not exactly sure about the denomination name) and lives in Bhopal with his wife who is a nursing tutor (training nurses) and their little girl, plus their more or less adopted second daughter who is 16.
Was I ever so surprised to find out that Sandeep has taken a few days leave in order to help us! Talk about kindness, that's one Good Samaritan!
Anyway, Sandeep came over and we spent the afternoon talking, getting to know each other, and making a plan for the next days. He looked over the paperwork and seemed to figure out which hospital we should go to, as I want to visit where Pax died. Then we made plans to get a memorial bench to put in the cemetery. There are two Christian cemeteries in Bhopal, a Catholic and Protestant one. We don't know for sure which cemetery but hopefully when Jo arrives from Goa on Friday, he'll help us find it. (I need to check with Jo before I put more details about him on this blog, so for now I'll call him Jo. I don't like writing about other people without their permission.) Jo took care of Pax's burial, and it is a true answer to prayer for him to be able to come up here.
I showed Sandeep pictures of Pax and we talked about what happened. I am amazingly calm. I think I cried so much and so desperately yesterday that I'm a bit "cried out" but we'll see what tomorrow brings.
I think I need to give some credit again to TCF (The Compassionate Friends) and the Dove Service, as being able to talk about my children and some of the deepest concerns of my heart has somewhat freed me. I can now talk about Pax and what happened without breaking down. Most of all, I can say the words that Pax died. To the people who belong to the school of "move on", "be brave", I think you're missing the point. If we as individuals don't grieve, don't express our grief, however painful and emotional, it doesn't just go away. We might try to lock up the feelings and carry on with our lives, but the emotions aren't gone. They're just held inside, smoldering, like a volcano waiting to erupt. And when little fissures appear in our lives, little breaks along the surface because of other troubles or weak times, then the hot lava or hot gases burst out in shooting, brief columns. Then the volcano quietens down again, but all the time the heat is building under the surface. Eventually it will erupt.
That's what has happened to me in regards to Pax. It's so much better to speak it, to cry it, to move through your bereavement at a natural pace. "Being brave" didn't do me any good. We don't move on (I hate that phrase!) from our loved ones, but we move through our bereavement to the point that we start to adjust to a life without the person we lost.
Well, 30 years on, here I am in Bhopal. I'm sitting here calmly. I'm able to remember Pax, to look at his photos, to share his photos with others. I couldn't have done that if I hadn't spent the past 20 months expressing my grief. Pax has a proper part in my life again, as it should be. Well of course the "should be" is for him to be alive, but that is not something I can make happen.
(As for Catherine, won't she be there when I get back to England? No, she won't. But I thought I'd throw that in just in case you think I'm "doing better" today. There's no "doing better". There's only coping, breathing, continuing moment by moment.)
Back to the present. It was a very good thing meeting Sandeep and I found it very encouraging.
And then the lady of the house came home from teaching in college, and we had a chat, and she took me and Simon for a drive by the lake, and then to the market to get fruit and veg. We're not in the centre of Bhopal but another small township. The market could have been anywhere in India. The smells of the fruit and veg; the street smells; the sound of the honking vehicles; the cars, bikes, scooters and pedestrians weaving through the roads; the cows walking unhindered, bending their heads down to munch on whatever food they find; the small roadside shops; the piles of mis-shapen tomatoes that would be simply thrown away in the UK; the giant lumps of juggary (cane sugar); the brinjal (eggplant), bumpy little cucumbers, small green limes, sweet smelling papayas; all of this could have been anywhere in India and was just what we remembered. It was a feast of memory--sound, sights and smells. There was only one thing new and changed from our experiences of India 30 years ago: A mobile phone shop on the corner of the market.
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