The day the rains came.........

It’s been 60 days of no rain and then the rains came……… it felt significant as I set off for my days’ retreat at the lovely Penhurst Retreat Centre in East Sussex. And what a 60 days it has been…… constant watering both at home and on the allotment and in a strange way at Worthing Hospital where my lovely husband Mick was battling an aggressive cancer and other health issues. I was taking food into him twice a day and encouraging him to do his exercises and keep fighting in the hope that we could get him back home. Sadly that was not to be and Mick passed away peacefully on Monday 3 August listening to a beautiful recording of birdsong.

And here I am 3 weeks later sitting in a little one man shepherds hut listening to the rain, the distant bleating of the sheep and clucking of the chickens wondering what the future holds. I am currently reading a book by one of my faith heroes Rachel Held Evans who passed away suddenly in 2019. This particular chapter, I am reading as I sit here, is entitled Holy Week for Doubters where she describes the sudden unexpected onslaught of doubt……… it could be a description of how grief will assault you out of nowhere.

“It will bother you off and on, like a rock in your shoe, OR it will startle you, like the first crash of thunder in a summer storm, OR it will lodge itself beneath your skin like a splinter, OR it will show up again - the uninvited guest whose heavy footsteps you’d recognise anywhere, appearing at your front door with a suitcase in hand at the worst possible time. OR it will pull you farther out to sea like riptide, OR hold your head down as you drown”

This week I had a few difficult jobs to do. One was to release this little mouse caught in our humane trap back into the wilds (a task Mick would have usually undertaken). Another was to swim 30 lengths in freestyle….. a new skill to me and I am currently trying to improve my stamina whilst still working on my technique. And the third was to take a bag of shoes to the charity shop. Of those 3 which do you think proved to be the most challenging?? Well strangely it was the bag of shoes….. You see the mouse I had had practice in how to do it when we had a bit of a flurry of mice in the garden in the Summer. My youngest son had been staying with me and he had trained me in how to do it and so although I did not like it, I knew what to do. The swimming, I had a friend with me who encouraged me to keep going so I was not alone in my challenge. BUT the shoes………… well they belonged to Mick and I saw them every time I came into the house as the shoe rack is by the front door and I just knew they needed to go. Some were his special best shoes, hardly ever worn but very loved, some were those I had researched when he was unwell desperately trying to find footwear that was comfy, easy to put on but didn’t look medical or old and frumpy. So it was a wrench to let them go and an unexpected sense of loss.

And here is my new shoe rack with all my own shoes, reminding me to take each day “step by single step”…… (words of a beautiful poem by Jan Richardson given to me while I was on my retreat day). Here’s a few more of her words to hopefully bless and encourage you (and me) as we journey through life with all its joys and sorrows : “If you could see the journey whole you might never undertake it, might never dare the first step that propels you from the place you have known toward the place you know not. Call it one of the mercies of the road: that we see it only by stages as it opens before us, as it comes into our keeping, step by single step.” Revie G August 2026