Thought for the Week: Roger Babington-Hill takes leave

‘Some endings are easier than others.’

I find it’s easier to join a relationship of any kind than to leave it. There’s something velcro- like about leaving, a reluctance to let go, a stickiness of old hope remaining.

Take ‘Leave meeting’, the bright red box at the foot of a Zoom Meeting for Worship. It is both an invitation and a command. One click of the mouse and – whoosh! – that little world of which we had been part has gone. But I wonder how it is best to end any Meeting for Worship? There is guidance about settling into the start of a Meeting, but little about how to end it, apart from shaking hands. 

Perhaps a musical analogy is helpful. A classical symphony or concerto starts in a particular key – C major, or A minor, or whatever – and journeys through related keys, to end back in the key where it began. It comes home. Coming home is a comfortable place to end a Meeting for Worship, too. It’s also a good place for a new beginning.

Some endings are easier than others. I meet a couple of friends most weeks. We take it in turns to gather in one of our houses, chat, have tea or coffee, biscuit or cake, and sort out the world. Unfortunately, as is always the case, the world takes no notice but we carry on regardless. Then it’s time to leave.

‘Bye,’ says one.

‘Bye,’ says the other.

‘See you on Friday.’

Well that’s easy enough, perhaps because the future is built into the ending. But a while ago, some close friends of ours moved from Devon to Lincolnshire. We are in touch, but less often. It seems to be too far to drive – we could do it, of course, but we haven’t, and neither have they. Something good is fading away.

(I feel lucky that none of my children has shown any desire to emigrate to the Antipodes or Western Canada. What a wrench that must be, a little death softened by an occasional flight every few years, and by Sunday-evening glimpses of the grandchildren on the computer screen.)

I walk to our corner shop each morning to collect the newspaper. I enjoy this walk. Whatever the weather, it gets me out and moving. It’s busy in the shop but the cheerful lady serving always has time for a few words. We end with my thanking her. We both know that I’ll be back.

But there’s another kind of ending altogether. That’s when we are with a friend who is very close to death. That was how it was for me last week. I visited John, a bachelor living alone, now in his late nineties. For the last twenty years I have called in when I’ve been in Exeter. It’s always a pleasure, because he reviews his life with such gratitude: ‘I’ve had a wonderful life. People have been so kind to me.’

He said that he has told his medical team that he doesn’t want to be resuscitated. He’s ready to die.

We held hands.

‘Goodbye, John, dear friend.’

‘Goodbye, dear friend.’

‘God be with you.’  

John will be alive with me for so long as I remember. 

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Comments

Beautiful.

By Jenniferdk on 2024 10 14

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