LUKE

By Ronnie Bray

My wife Norma became ill around the beginning of September 1997.  In late October her onchologist  told us that she had bronchial carcinoma.  With treatment, he said, she might have as long as eighteen months before she would have to leave us.  She took this in her stride, sustained by her profound faith in the Saviour’s promises.  Three weeks later she died in my arms.  

After her funeral at the end of November, Joanne invited me to stay with her and Nick at Telford, 120 miles from Huddersfield.  I needed that.  I wasn’t ready to face an empty house.  

Jo and Nick have three bright sons.  At that time, Joseph was four, Thomas two, and Luke a bubbly 10 months.  Spending time with the boys and being a full-time grandfather helped ease some of the pain of Norma’s death.  I planned to stay with Jo and the boys through Christmas, then return home.  

I felt a wonderful peace knowing that Norma was in a better place and that her suffering had ended, but I missed her terribly.  Ours had been a loving, happy marriage lasting twelve and a half years, and even being with Jo’s family, I felt alone.

One day, I laid face down on the living room carpet in front of the fire to rest.  Luke toddled over to me, climbed onto my back and snuggled down, his face wreathed in smiles.  It was so cute that someone took a photograph.

From that time, Luke and I have been inseparable.  When I sit, he climbs onto my lap, looks into my eyes, and snuggles his head into my chest with his arms reaching under my jacket.  At times he pulls back, looks into my eyes, smiling broadly, before planting kisses on my mouth, then snuggling down again.

Since the time my own children had been babies, I had never known such affection from a child: it was unexpected, miraculous, and fulfilling.  By some miracle deep inside him, Luke had become my consolation.  He supplied the balm that eased my pain and assuaged my loneliness.  Jo said that when I was not there he could be a monster, but that he was always angelic in my presence.  

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After almost a year had passed, I told Jo that I was planning to remarry.  She was horrified.  She felt that I was being disloyal to her mother and that I should never remarry.  I tried to explain, but she could not understand.  It seemed that I was no longer welcome.  

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For almost four months, I did not visit Jo and her boys.  It was a sorrowful season and while I did not yield to melancholy, my spirit brooded, distressed by the awful anguish of separation from those I loved more than life itself.  

Eventually, I decided to risk a visit.  I bought some sweets – I always had my pockets filled with sweets when I visited – and drove to Telford.  I decided to and ask her if she would give the sweets to the boys, so they did’t think I had forgotten them.  When I got there, they were out in the garden in the sunshine.  The boys were so excited, and Jo took me in the house and made me welcome.   My feelings for Jo at this were overwhelming.  She has always had a good and generous heart.  

What happens to time in childhood?  It must be that children do not mark the passing of time, but stack events into broad categories unrelated to time.  The boys were overjoyed to see me.  Luke saw me, beamed, and raising his arms for me to lift him up, snuggled into my shoulder as if he had seen me only the day before.  I was home again.  I still had painful moments from knowing that my upcoming remarriage was viewed with some distaste.

In December 1998, I travelled to Arizona to marry my bride, Gay, returning to England with her in January 1999.  It was some time before we felt able to visit Jo and the boys.  But, when we did, although Jo was guardedly friendly, the boys were as warm as ever, and Luke was still my baby.  

Then, Luke decided he would become Granddad.  Pushing a cushion up his shirt and tying a pretty hair bow around his neck as if it was my bow tie, he announced, “I’m granddad!  I got sweeties!” whilst dispensing Lego bricks from his bulging pockets.  

Sometimes he would come toward me with outstretched arms, calling me “My baby,” as I call him.  Often, he breaks off from his play to come across, hug, and kiss me.

Because babies change everyone thought that Luke would outgrow this magical affection.  Children grow up and find other interests.  But they don’t grow out of love, nor do they tire of being loved.  And granddads don’t stop loving their grandchildren or their children, however hard that gets!

One thing is sure: some kinds of love, like some friendships, are made in heaven, and that’s the kind Luke and I have.  The sort of love that never wears out, whether we are in the world or out of it.  

I thank God for Luke, my blessing, and my consolation.  I thank God for love.  Love is the source of life, the gift of a loving God.  It is solace to the despairing, and a light to those who dwell in the crushing darkness of loneliness.

Copyright © 1998 - 2009 - Ronnie Bray

Postscript:  Luke has now reached the ripe old age of twelve years, and is quite the man.  The special bond of love we have enjoyed for eleven years is still as strong. Good hearts are stubborn things.