Almost exactly 15 years ago I started to go through the same thing. I had run out of energy and things that I previously took on my stride were starting to cause me real anxiety. Throughout my adult life I had struggled with periodic low mood/borderline depression, but, on the advice of a helpful doctor I had never gone down the route of medication, but simply “watched the gauges” and when the tank was verging on empty I eased off until I could get a break. However that year, I had experienced a number of physical injuries that disturbed the rhythm of my week and my mental heath, and after the busyness of Lent and Holy Week, we took our customary week away in Scotland, but on my return there was no “lift off” and I limped my way to our summer break in France. We had a fabulous holiday, but again on my return there was no improvement. It certainly wasn’t helped by the fact that during our absence our 19 year old cat, Mitten, had died in unfortunate circumstances.
I usually anticipated the new church session with the sense of mounting a rollercoaster which would not stop until Boxing Day... I actually like physical and metaphorical rollercoasters, normally... but that year I was frankly terrified at what lay ahead, and, ironically at a ministerial training session on self-care, finally the “wheels came off the wagon” and I came to a juddering halt.
Thankfully I was supported by some wonderful colleagues, with a special call out to Heather Morris, Ruth Craig and Robin Waugh, and particularly Alan Lorimer who brought his counselling skills to bear, introducing me to some new tools to help, not only with recovery, but also with ongoing wellbeing. Chief among those were mindfulness, CBT and a ruthless attitude to having a fixed day off, where I was to switch off all means of communication and engage in something that was nothing to do with my day job, or indeed with words...
At his suggestion I resumed a long abandoned hobby of painting 25mm military figures (DO NOT call them “toy soldiers”), an activity that requires inordinate focus. I’m not very good at it, and no-one within a hundred miles still “wargames”. In my teenage years I and a friend once won the Northern Ireland Schools Wargames Competition, don’t you know. So for the past 15 years I have, as far as possible, retreated for one day each week to some specially reserved corner of each manse we have inhabited, to sniff glue and paint for 8 hours! And I have finally come to the stage where I am now 28 small figures away from completing all the armies I had started on all those years ago (including replacing some that had been stolen from a previous manse in a garage robbery). If anyone knows what to do with 3544 badly painted miniature figurines, ranging from ancient Egyptians to 16th century Scots, please let Sally know.
But another key part of my recovery was a wee bundle of fur called Claudia (or Claudia Jean to give her her full handle, being named after the West Wing’s CJ Cregg). An American friend Wendy Lamoreaux who was volunteering in Belfast at the time, and is a complete, self-confessed, crazy cat lady, bullied Sally and I into getting a new cat to fill the void left by Mitten a few months earlier. So, reluctantly, we went to Assisi Animal Sanctuary in Conlig and promptly fell in love with a little cat that we were told had been one of two sisters rescued from a plastic bag outside the Spar in Ballycastle. After the requisite checks as to whether we would be suitable cat owners etc, she came home to the Dundonald Methodist manse at Rosepark. She was very nervous at first, and she never liked plastic bags, but she has accompanied us through two manse moves and a lot of emotional ups and downs. She was very much my cat during those first months of mental and emotional recovery, spending lots of time on my lap, but she subsequently continued her career as a therapy cat snuggling up to anyone who was ill or injured. This was especially important for our older son Owain who went through some really tough times towards the end of his time at school, but all of us have benefited from the ministrations of Doctor Claudia at one time or another... Although we’re not entirely convinced it was because she was particularly empathetic (unlike Mitten, who although she was a lovely cat only came near us on her own terms!) or whether she was just good at identifying someone who looked like they were going to be staying in the one place for a prolonged period of time.
But Sunday evening, after a short period of illness (she was fine last Thursday), and a particularly distressing last hour, for her and us, Claudia died.
If I have been impatient with anyone over the past week, I apologise, but the loss of this gentle little bundle of fur has hit me hard. I thought I heard her bell jingling this morning as Sally drew back the curtains from the patio doors, and it brought it all back to me. There will be no more fighting with her at breakfast time for the seat we both like on the sofa first thing... there will be no more Hobbit-like second breakfasts, before heading off across the lawn to see off pesky pigeons and magpies (for which she had distinct vocalisations) from her garden... or indeed videos of her seeing off foxes in the middle of the night, or visiting local badger setts. No more sniffing around when we had pancakes with butter... no more bullying us to go to bed so she could join us in the middle of winter... or indeed cat-o’clock wake up calls when she then wanted to go out. No more lying across papers whilst trying to sort out my tax return on the dining room table, or parading across the screen midst zoom call wanting to be let out my study window. No more battering on the nearest window to us when she wanted back in. No more lounging on a dewy lawn and demanding to be dried off on coming in. She is now permanently out in the garden.
And I am out of sorts.
How often do people discover too late that the person, or creature, or thing we turn to in the face of loss is no longer there? Indeed the grief of loss of small points of comfort and reorientation are the most difficult to process.
Particularly when, frankly, I am currently facing some of the most difficult decisions I have had to process in my ministry... doubtless there will be more on that anon.
The pious part of me would say in the face of another’s grief, that all earthly comforts are passing and only God and his love is eternally steadfast. Which is true. I will be affirming that today at yet another funeral.
But the fact is that God will not climb into my lap and sooth me by purring whilst I stroke his soft fur...
God uses the most insignificant of creatures and the simplest of activities to help us process our grief and anxiety.
So, the first chance I get, I suspect I will be retreating to the attic to finish off those final few model soldiers... And what will come next... who knows!?
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