29th January

Birthdays are supposed to be fun days. So how come so much enjoyment ends up being incredibly painful? Yes I’ve done all the right things today, though technically my birthday’s tomorrow, but everyone’s at work or school or out of town. So we celebrate at the weekend to make it easy. I had a lovely time with my wonderful family, did the pantomime thing, had our Chinese food, blew the candles out on my cake and opened some delightful presents. My kids are great. My 9 year old grand-daughter made an incredible lemon cake, as tall as it was wide. My favourite! I have aftershave, a Marsalis Clapton jazz album, intriguing packets of coffee beans and a book entitled ‘Getting the Blues’, exploring the topic ‘What blues music teaches us about suffering and salvation’. My son-in-law was quite superb playing ‘Crash Jordan’ in the panto, even though he seems to be wearing a Star Trek uniform. At least he didn’t end up as the pantomime dame. But my youngest grandkids struggled to cope with the all too realistic baddies… the space pirates were far too like Captain Jack Sparrow for comfort. Their water pistols had my youngest grand-daughter crawling into mum’s arms for cover, and she really did need to hide behind me after the show when the cast came to mingle with the crowd. She loved her uncle’s part though!

The problem came when I happened to glance at a small group of photo frames on my daughter’s wall. So, suddenly there I was standing with my lovely Jane, and my eyesight rapidly lost focus as the pain in my heart opened the floodgates in my tear ducts one more time. For sure I’m moving on, but there’s a way to go before I can cope with these special family days without getting so upset…

John 11:35 ‘Then Jesus wept.’ (NLT)