Tea with tears

David Thomas (centre)

Yesterday a group of us with MND and our families were invited for tea at the Kingswell near Harwell. It was a good time. Four of us were in wheelchairs, and there was Lorraine's new grandson, Max, just a few days old. The one person whom we all missed was our friend, David Thomas. I refer to him in the Diary of a Donkeybody blog as "the herb gardener" because he used to joke about having left his cannabis farm for the afternoon! He died last Thursday at his home. Everyone would comment on his spark and his wit and sense of fun. He was also very brave. The disease affected him severely and rapidly. My picture shows him at a meeting in May last year.

He went to Sandhurst and served in the Royal Artillery. He was a crack shot and had been chairman of the British Pistol Club. Last year despite his illness he completed an MA in First World War Studies at Birmingham, writing a unique dissertation:

He took great pleasure in seeing the weddings of both his daughter last year and his son this year. We all felt his absence as we shared our tea. Because he was above all a lovely man and he and wife Penny an inspiring couple. A mutual friend wrote this morning: "I will never forget his wit and cheeky sparkle. MND is such a cruel disease :( " I have to say her mother, who has it too, is a pretty sparkly lady also. Which is quite something as we're all aware, to one degree or another, of the limit to the Christmases we'll live to enjoy with our families.

Perhaps that's the reason too why none of us was in a hurry to leave that friendly room, where we were able to share, either with laboured speech or via speaking device, with others who just understood and people who cared.

It was dusk as we left and the Friday traffic from Reading was already streaming past. Then it was time for supper and relaxing by the tv. I'd recorded Rev. from the night before, to which I have ambivalent feelings. This episode I thought was well done. There's a brilliant new teacher at the church school of which the Rev is chair of governors. However he's an articulate lapsed Catholic atheist. The head loves him; the vicar loathes him. On the day of the religious inspection Mr Feld is late. In fact he's been knocked off his bike and is dead. The Rev has to give the assembly. He begins, "It's very difficult to know what to say at times like this. We won't be seeing Mr Feld again here, because Matthew's gone somewhere else now. Matthew didn't believe in Heaven, but I do. I don't know what it is, but I do know a story that gives me an idea. It's a story about a lot of little bugs that lived at the bottom of a river. And every now and then one of the little bugs would crawl up a stem through the water, up into the light - and would never be seen again...."

Waterbugs and Dragonflies 

It's not an original story. In fact I used to keep a copy to explain death to bereaved children. The point of the story is that the "bug" turns into a beautiful dragonfly able to fly, but can't reassure the bugs he's left behind because he can't ever get back there. This upset him "until he remembered that all his friends one day would climb up the stems and join him in the sun."

It's clearly not a story for adults. It's a very simple version of the truth, which of course the children (and we) can take or leave. I would say that the metamorphosis is not automatic, but it's certainly God's offer and desire that we should exchange our bodies for a superior model, which won't have the weakness, disease and frustration we now experience and which won't ever wear out. I'd say the picture of nymph and dragonfly is not a bad analogy, except eternity's longer than a month! There's a verse somewhere which talks about the good things that pass our understanding which God has prepared for those who love him.