I was out at a lunch yesterday and someone asked me what I was working on at the moment. As I’m working on various things I could only reply that ‘I was tidying up the year’. It seemed apt and just about covered exactly what I was doing without going into detail. It’s been a very jumbled year for me – and it seems for everyone else I speak to. They say that into every life a little rain must fall and I’ve had my share this year and someone else is very much in my thoughts as they face a very sad ending to the year. Life is full of joys and woes and if we can step back from our sadness it seems we get them in equal measure.
My father died earlier this year and I thought as time passed missing him would get easier but it has been the exact opposite. I am reminded of him every day – in wonderful and funny ways that mostly make me smile but always with a tinge of loss.
It’s brought to mind the film Shadowlands when Anthony Hopkins as C. S. Lewis says something along the lines of ‘Grief being the price we pay for love’. Sometimes it feels like an extortionate price to pay but mostly I am coming to the point where I feel grateful for having had such a loving dad.
So on with the tidying up of loose ends, preparing for good things in the year ahead – for I’m sure they will come, along with the rain, but hopefully not too much of a downpour.