Hargrave Alan - One for sorrow: a memoir of death and life

Dedication

David Whyte, The Well of Grief, from River Flow: New and selected poems (Langley, WA: Many Rivers Press, 2012).

4 Loss

Genesis 21.16.

5 Bottom line 1

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, from Collected Poems (London: Faber and Faber, 1963).

See especially Primo Levi, If This is a Man (London: Abacus, 1987).

1 Corinthians 13.8, Love never fails, NIV; Love never ends, NRSV.

Romans 8.3839.

Song of Solomon 8.67, authors own translation.

6 Visit

Philip Larkin, An Arundel Tomb, from Collected Poems (London: Faber and Faber, 1990).

Baroness Sheila Hollins, Desert Island Discs , 2012.

7 Help

Job 2.10, NRSV, adapted.

Mark 14.3242.

Isaiah 53.

Michael Mayne, The Enduring Melody (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2005).

9 End

John 12.18.

Luke 24.

10 Farewell

TV series starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson. Someone who knows them gets them to send Tom a signed photo of themselves in Bottom . They write on it: Get well, you bastard. Tom loves it.

Ateliers et Presses de Taiz. Reprinted with permission.

11 KBO

Michael Leunig, A Common Prayer Collection (North Blackburn, Australia: Dove Collins, 1993).

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (London: Penguin Classics, 1994).

Annie Hargrave, unpublished poem.

12 Back to work

Primo Levi, If This is a Man (London: Abacus, 1987).

13 Moving on

Genesis 32.2232.

The Collect for the Fourth Sunday before Lent.

14 New life

Dr Evelyn Sharp, consultant psychiatrist, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust and InterHealth Worldwide.

Psalm 139.14.

Pat Barker, Regeneration (London: Penguin, 1992).

Ewan MacColl, from Black and Whiter (London: Cooking Vinyl, 1990).

15 Leaving

Alan Boyd, unpublished poem.

16 The Grand Round

For full text, see Appendix.

17 Bottom line 2

Philip Larkin, Churchgoing, from The Less Deceived (Hessle, East Yorkshire: Marvell Press, 1977).

George Herbert, Bitter Sweet, from The English Poems of George Herbert (Littlehampton Book Services, Worthing/Everyman, 1974).

Hebrews 12.12.

John 20.2428.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son (London: SPCK, 1997).

Mara means bitter. See Ruth 1.20.

Lo-ruhamah means not pitied. See Hosea 1.6.

Annie Hargrave, unpublished poem.

Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (London: Vintage, 2012).

18 Blessed

C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (London: Faber and Faber, 1966).

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son (London: SPCK, 1997).

R. S. Thomas, Folk Tale, from Collected Poems (London: Phoenix, 1993).

The Sacrament of the Present Moment is a Christian concept first expounded by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, similar to mindfulness in Buddhism.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet , Act 1, Scene 3.

For the importance of stability, see Alan Hargrave, Living Well (London: SPCK, 2010) and the Rule of Benedict. Benedictine vows include a vow of stability, which in practice means remaining in the same community for life.

Viktor Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning (London: Rider, 1959).

George Herbert, Gratefulnesse, from The English Poems of George Herbert (Littlehampton Book Services, Worthing/Everyman, 1974).

Edward the Confessor, as he was dying, was reported to have said, Weep not, I shall not die. And as I leave the land of the dying I trust to see the blessings of the Lord in the land of the living.

Alan Hargrave was born in Leeds and trained as an engineer before working for ten years with the Anglican Church in South America, first in economic development in Argentina, then church planting in Bolivia. He returned to the UK in 1987 to train as a priest. After eleven years as vicar of a council estate parish in Cambridge, he became Canon Missioner of Ely Cathedral in 2004. An Almighty Passion: Meeting God in ordinary life was published in 2002 (reissued in 2011) and Living Well: Finding a rule of life to sustain & revitalize us in 2010. Alan entered the Jubilee Years of retirement in January 2016. He remains passionate about justice, Yorkshire cricket, golf, his four children one of whom tragically died of cancer his grandchildren, his wife Annie and, of course, the Almighty.

Magpie

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl and four for a boy

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret never to be told.

First published in Great Britain in 2017

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Copyright Alan Hargrave 2017

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved The quotation marked niv is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version (Anglicized edition). Copyright 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica (formerly International Bible Society). Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved.

niv is a registered trademark of Biblica (formerly International Bible Society). UK trademark number 1448790.

Photograph of the Octagon (page 77) supplied by Ely Cathedral.

Extract from An Arundel Tomb (page 24) from Collected Poems by Philip Larkin is reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber.

Taiz chant (page 39) copyright Atelier et Presses de Taiz. Reprinted with permission.

Extract from film Shadowlands (page 62) is reproduced by permission of The Agency (London) Ltd copyright William Nicholson. First published by Samuel French, 1989. All rights reserved and enquiries to The Agency (London) Ltd, 24 Pottery Lane, London W11 4LZ ().

Unpublished poem by Alan Boyd (page 67) is reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Extract from Folk Tale (page 81) from Collected Poems by R. S. Thomas is reproduced by kind permission of his family.

Every effort has been made to seek permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book. The publisher apologizes for those cases where permission might not have been sought and, if notified, will formally seek permission at the earliest opportunity.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780281078196

eBook ISBN 9780281078202

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First printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press

Subsequently digitally printed in Great Britain

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Produced on paper from sustainable forests

In memory of Tom, my beloved son

For Annie, Liz, Jo, Ben, Shirley and all who have walked this journey with us

For all who bear the deep wounds of loss and grief, especially those who face sorrow much greater than our own

The Well of Grief

Those who will not slip beneath

the still surface of the well of grief,

turning down through its black water

to the place we cannot breathe,