Comfort. Solace. Consolation. Each of them a word about the alleviation of woundedness, loneliness and a disconsolate spirit. I think too, comfort, solace and consolation are gifts best delivered personally, that is, in the context of a relationship. All of that sounds a bit abstract, and even enigmatic. So let me make it plain.
Today we had a visit from two of our oldest friends. We met them almost 50 years ago, before we were married. Their daughter and our daughter were born within 24 hours of each other. Throughout nearly half a century we have laughed and cried together, guided and supported each other, entrusted our hopes and fears and shared without calculation whatever we each needed. And all this in a friendship where we can go a year or two without meeting and pick up where we left off.
They are peculiarly well placed to feel and understand how we are feeling as we try each day to come to terms with the loss of our daughter Aileen. Their coming to visit us was an act of unsurprising generosity, the kind of thing close friends do without thinking. The comfort comes from the gift of time, presence and attention, a willingness to listen with neither interruption nor unasked for advice. Then add an unspoken recognition that your grief is embraced in the shared pain of a sorrow that needs no unnecessary words attempting to reduce its unremitting burden; and that is solace, the feeling of being understood as one trying to make sense of an incomprehensible loss.
Consolation is solace rooted i such deep companionship. After lunch out at a favourite place we walked up around and beyond Drum Castle. We talked. Well, I talked a lot, and Jack listened a lot. We walked, often in silence, in the castle grounds and up into the forest. There we heard birdsong, the music of trees moving in the breeze, the sound of footsteps on pine needles, and for a while, no words. Instead a friend walking the path alongside, enacted metaphor of the love of those select few who understand us enough to know that there are some things in each of our lives we will never understand fully; and that's ok. Today consolation was the presence of a friend, who took the trouble to come, now walking alongside, often silent, always attentive, sharing the moment, then the next moment.
At the time I was simply grateful for friends like this friend; thinking about it some hours later, though, I realise that there was an Emmaus feel to this afternoon. In Luke 24 two disciples are walking along disconsolately, grief stricken, and unsure what the future will look like. And though they don't know it, the stranger who joins them is the risen Jesus. Comfort, solace and consolation were mediated through the presence of this new companion on the way. Not very different, the presence today of a friend in whose presence there is the sense of a communion greater than the two of us, and in the fellowship of Christ the sustaining sacrament of a love that has proved itself over decades, and is not only the gift of God, but in its self-giving, gives the love of God a living presence and voice.
Of course moods change. And though grief is eased by comfort, solace and consolation, the sorrow is still there, the loss is just as real, the ache of sadness has become familiar and isn't going away anytime soon. How could it? Love has its cost, and love pays it with neither complaint nor evasion, because that's what love is; the exposure of the heart to the risks of hurt and loss. God knows, love's worth it. And today, through the visit of our friends, the God who knows this came near.
(The photo was take by Aileen, one of her favourite views of Bennachie)
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