Au Revoir - but not Goodbye!

(Joan W - thanks to Shirley for the photo!)

An old friend died early yesterday morning, just after dawn, during the slackness between the ebb and flow of the tides, in a rest home just a half-mile from Brighton’s beach. Two of her children were with her at the end as her breathing became more laboured and she finally slipped away.

When I say an ‘old friend’ I do not mean one whom I have known for many years - indeed I only knew Joan for about three years - but she was 94 years old when she died.

On hearing the news of her passing, there was the immediate and natural ache of loss, a sense that something valuable had been stolen, a dulling of the brightness of day.

Natural...but mistaken. In a world where nothing seems real or true except the internal logic of reason, there is one paradoxical truth, the transforming power of faith. The writer of Hebrews 11:1 says ‘Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.’ St. Augustine summarises it well: ‘Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of faith is to see what you believe.’ 

So, I do believe that we will meet again, on the other side, possibly over Joan’s favourite tipple, a gin and tonic – if there is such a thing in Heaven!

In the meantime, there are the memories. Joan was a teenager in the inter-war years when life was simpler and she moved to central London to train as a nurse. Money was scarce and the work was tough. Marriage and the war years coincided. Her husband was a naval officer and the ship he was serving in was torpedoed and sunk - not once but twice - during the war. After the war, the good life gradually returned and there were overseas trips and the occasional evening dancing till dawn in a night club, one’s own case of liquor stowed behind the bar. Working for the minor royals introduced a world of opera, horse racing, parties and grand occasions, but Joan also remembered the less fortunate and among her possessions was a long service award for her meals-on-wheels work.      

She gave up driving at age 90 and gradually slowed down. I remember when, a couple of years ago, she turned up at our Catholaity charity fair, bought a few tickets for the tombola – and won all the best bottles of alcohol, walking away with no less than five bottles to the astonishment of Fr. Kevin. Nothing fazed her and I always left her company reluctantly, my spirits lifted by her good humour, old fashioned courtesy, impeccable courtliness and zest for life. Even on the phone, she had a way of ending conversations with a musical ‘goodbye!’ the word somehow shimmering in the air for a few seconds after you put the phone down.

Brighton & Hove is poorer and duller without Joan – but I can hear the faint sound of a party starting on the other side of the Pearly Gates!