Final endings. And new beginnings.

I’ve thought about grief and death a lot this year. Not by choice. Really, who would think about those things by choice? No, this year I’ve lost people who have impacted my life in a real and personal way.

Death is the last great taboo in my culture – at least one of them anyway. Talk about gay marriage, human cloning, genetically modified animals (even humans), that’s fine. Even vampirism (the real blood-sucking kind) has lost its stigma. But don’t talk about death.

The problem is, all of those other things probably don’t affect most of us in a very tangible way. But we all have to die someday. One day the world will remember us no more. And even if we do something so dramatic that it changes the face of the world as we know it, that’s no guarantee of our name living on beyond our mortal lives. How many young adults really know who the first person in space was, or who invented electricity? How many know who Stalin or Hitler were, or of the millions of lives they were responsible for extinguishing? You’d probably be lucky to find a teenager who knows the names of both our Prime Minister and our Premier – hey, I have enough trouble remembering!

Yes, we’re all going to die – and eventually be forgotten.

I was walking through St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne a few days ago, contemplating life after receiving news that morning that a friend had passed away two months ago. I didn’t know, and so I have missed the funeral. I’m not upset that I wasn’t informed – there were many others who knew him better than I. Probably not many people knew that he wasn’t just an old professor of mine, but that I once worked with him; or that over the last several years we caught up every few months or so for a cuppa and some wonderful conversation; or that he included me on his postcard list when he went away. Probably he impacted my life far more than I impacted his – that was the sort of person he was. He was exceedingly generous with his time and his knowledge.

He will be sorely missed by the academic community and he has left an amazing legacy of published knowledge and ground-breaking research behind. Having received official decorations, his name will probably live on longer than most. And I am struggling with the grief that I feel at his passing.

Maybe it is because of the wonderful person he was and how he touched my life. Maybe it’s worse because I have also attended the funerals of my 29 year old cousin and my father-in-law in the second half of this year following tragically unprepared for deaths. Maybe it’s because I am not able to share the grief with others, having missed the funeral, and having scarce contact with anyone else who knew him in a similar way. Possibly some may think my grief disproportionate to the situation.

We really don’t do death very well here. You’re allowed to cry for a while if it was an immediate family member, especially if they died ‘before their time’. But don’t show too much emotion if it’s not, and certainly not after the funeral. Pull yourself together and get on with it – at least in public.

We don’t know what to do with someone who is broken down and crying. We pat them sympathetically and look awkward. Particularly if it’s a year or two after the event, or if it was an unborn child that ‘never really was’ anyway. Allowing our grief to touch us means that we have to think about what is causing us to grieve in the first place.

It’s not just the confrontation of losing people deeply cared about, it’s the confrontation with death itself, and the reminder that everything is temporary. The world looks nothing like it did a few hundred years ago, and in a few hundred more it will look completely different again. That’s if it even lasts that long, if those apocalyptic films are anything to go by.

It’s not just about the loss of things that were and things that could have been, and things that will never be. It’s about coming face to face with the reality that our time here is brief and fleeting – dust blowing around in the wind.

And what are we here for anyway? Is it to build a multi-national business empire or invent something that will change the lives of people after us? People that will forget who we were anyway. In any case, will it REALLY change their lives? After all, they too will die one day. It could all seem quite pointless if you think about it too much.

That’s if this life on earth, ending in death, is all that there is.

If I believed that, I think I would sink into an irreversibly deep depression. People I love will continue to die. I will die. I will be forgotten.

No, there has to be more. I know there is more. I am not here by accident, but by design. I have been lovingly crafted by the Creator who Loves. Who loves me DESPITE who I am or what I have done. Who will be waiting for me on the other side of death’s door with open arms and a life that will never come to an end. So I have no need to fear death for myself.

But what of the ones I love? Will they be with me there when they pass through this door? More than the thought of losing them in this life, I fear the thought of not having them after death.

But God makes it very clear that we all have our own choices to make in this life, we all have a free will, and we all have the ability to choose well (Romans 2:14-16). God did not make us automatons, but agents of free will. God is the God of freedom, not captivity.

As much as I dread the thought, not everyone I love will choose the same path as me. I cannot make anyone choose my path – where would be the freedom in that? All I can do is live my chosen life in an exemplary way that makes people want what I have. I want people to hunger after the peace and contentment I’ve found even when things around me seem so rocky and full of despair. I’d be only too happy to share those things with them.

As we prepare for our ‘Mission’, this is what I think it really means. I do not plan to go anywhere to change people. I can’t do that, only God can. I set out to go wherever I go, being who I am. And who I am is someone who has found freedom, contentment and peace, knowing where my path is ultimately leading.

On the road again...

I couldn’t believe I was off to Russia again. It had been four and a half years and we’d had another child since the last time, so I didn’t think I’d be going for at least another year or two.

I should have been really excited; I’d been so hungry to get back there again. Russia often features in my mind. Not even I really understand my fascination with the place. I’m not Russian. I have no Russia blood in me – although my children do and I do have a Russian surname!

But it was hard to be excited when the reason I was going was so unbelievably awful. I was headed there to see my dying father-in-law. And without my husband.

This raised a whole lot of questions and anxieties for me that worked to supersede any excitement I would ordinarily feel at the prospect of returning to the land where a portion of my heart still resides.

Firstly, I was a sorry replacement for Nickolai. This was his dad. As much as I loved Yuri, he was not my father and Nickolai should have had a chance to be there with him in his dying hours. Thank God that he (and Kaleb) had actually just spent a whole month with Yuri before we knew he was dying, but it was still not a decision based entirely on choice. If Nickolai doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid, and we just couldn’t afford for him to not be working for another indeterminate period of time, as well as pay for more plane tickets.

The reason the period of time would be indeterminate, was because Nickolai’s Russian passport had just expired. He had taken it to Sydney (in person as required!) to be renewed, but the process takes at least four months (and then he had to return to Sydney – in PERSON – to pick it up). Did I ever mention Russia seems to love bureaucracy? As Russia does not recognise dual citizenship, he could not travel there on his Australian passport. He could get special permission to enter Russia, but he would still have to wait for his passport to be renewed, and who knew how long that would be? It was a difficult decision for him not to go, but it seemed to be the only one we had available.

Secondly, I didn’t know what was awaiting me. Yuri was incredibly ill with stomach cancer and in terrible pain. The medical system there was being extremely unhelpful and had decreed that there was no point in treating him. This was not something that we agreed with (nor was it the advice we got here), but we were so far away that we could do little. Even Nickolai’s politician step-brother could not pull the right strings to get the treatment we wanted – corrupt country or not. It seemed I would most certainly be going there to help with palliative care.

At 70 years of age I believe that the Russian doctors seemed to feel that it would be a waste of resources to treat him. In Russia, 70 is considered old for a man. The average life expectancy for a male in Russia is still only 59, and it’s much worse in more provincial areas. We have friends in a city about the size of Ballarat (70-80,000) where the life expectancy is 54. And this in a country which claims to have nearly 100% literacy levels.

Thirdly, while it seems that I speak Russian well enough that no Russian appears to believe me when I say I don’t understand everything, I still have a very long way to go. Sure, I am not afraid to wander the streets of Russia without a dictionary. I can shop, talk about the weather, buy tickets for planes, trains and buses, very comfortably, but I still struggle quite a bit with deep philosophical topics, complicated transactions and bureaucratic nonsense. (Let’s face it, I don’t think I could understand their bureaucracy even if it were in plain English...) Knowing I could be dealing with the Russian medical system and with helping to sort Yuri’s affairs, this freaked me out more than a little.

However, all of these concerns I was happy to hand to God. I figured I had to – what other choice did I have? In my life I’ve discovered that’s actually a good place to be. The more I feel I can manage my own life, the more I tend to stuff it up. I know it’s clichéd, but I like that phrase, “Let go and let God”. I’m trying to remember to hang onto that, otherwise I think I would have spiralled out control by now.

So we made plans to go. And then those plans got rapidly sped up as Yuri went downhill fast. No time to pack at leisure or think carefully about what I should take. Before I knew it, we were sitting on a plane waving goodbye to our home in Australia.

I finally let myself breathe and the tears fill my eyes. It had all been so exhausting until this point, and I knew there would be worse to come, so I decided to just try and be in the moment. Regardless of the circumstances, I still can’t help being excited about plane travel. I hope I never lose that (although I must admit that the shine does wear off a little after 20 hours in economy class).

I watched the excitement in my girls’ faces and I tried to take this forced opportunity as time to rest. Not terribly easy with a wired two-and-a-half-year-old in tow, but at least she couldn’t run away anywhere! I started to warm to the idea of actually not feeling guilty about sitting down to watch a movie at ‘leisure’. And on that note, all I can say is “Thank you Lord for the pause button!”

What a year

What a year...
Hmm, it’s nearly time for my Christmas epistle, and I don’t really want this to turn into my yearly update, but I figure I really should provide some reason as to why I started this blog six months ago and then promptly ‘dropped off the planet’.
At the time I started this blog, the MOTH* and our son were in Russia visiting family for a month. That left me and our three beautiful daughters to fend for ourselves. Fun at times and a danger to the state of my hair at other times!
I got really sick while they were gone. I never knew sinus pain could be SOOOO bad. Honestly – I would give birth yet another 4 times in quick succession rather than have to go through pain like that again. So my plans to get the house decluttered and looking like a Vogue spread while the MOTH was gone (so that he’d be completely flabbergasted on his return) were foiled. Truthfully, so much conspires against my home organisational desires. But I digress...
Well, he gets home and is confronted with chaos and a bed-ridden wife. And the wife is about to have hand surgery in three days and therefore needs to be waited on hand and foot in order to get better. Then she goes and has that surgery and needs to be waited on hand and foot in order to recover from the surgery (you try tying a shoe lace with one hand!) So far so stressful...
At the end of June, a couple of weeks after the MOTH’s return and my surgery, we received the terrible news that his dad had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. Stage IV cancer. Two to three months to live.
Our world tipped upside down.
My husband had just been in Russia for a month. If the man doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. And so he made the very reluctant decision not to go back. Instead we decided that I would go. I hadn’t seen Yuri in four and a half years, and I wanted to see him again, and help where I could. We decided that Sasha (14) and Amelie (nearly 3) would come with me.
And so began the whirlwind of passport applications with a plan to leave in 6 weeks (the biggest hold up being the lengthy time required to organise Russian invitation and visas). It was also the beginning of an incredibly frustrating time with Russian medical system. Basically, they had already written him off (perhaps because he was 70 and that is about ten years more than the average life expectancy for a male there). We were told they weren’t even going to try chemotherapy, let alone surgery, even though I was able to ascertain that stomach cancer can respond quite well to treatment. We felt so helpless, and so far away.
After just three weeks we were told that Yuri was going downhill quickly and was not expected to live many more days. In between the tears and the shock of the reality of all of this, I raced around even more trying to organise expedited visas for myself and the girls. This even involved flying to Sydney to pick them up. We were on a plane within a week. It was only when the plane took off that I could take any stock of my emotions and realise the enormity of all this. I felt so scared and overwhelmed by it all.
After 38 hours in transit, our plane landed at 8.10 pm on Tuesday 27th July. Yuri died at 8.00 pm.
We found this out on the Wednesday morning and spent most of the day in shock. The funeral was to be the next day and I couldn’t even get my head around the fact that Yuri was gone. It was an awful feeling.
We stayed in Russia for a month. It was a time of bitter-sweetness. I hope to share more about it in future blog posts. It was sadness tinged with a ray of hope as God was able to use this time to renew my yearning for this land and its people.
When we got back I could not understand why it seemed to take forever to get over the jet lag this time. Ten days later and I was still feeling out of sorts. Emotional upheavals aside, I think the fact I had seen only a few hours of darkness in our entire month over there, and then coming back to early winter evenings, didn’t help.
In any case, my disorientation and feeling of flatness on returning to ‘normality’ did not help when (just two weeks after our return), I received one of those phone calls none of us wants. One of my dear, sweet cousins had tragically lost her life to depression at only 29. Another round of shock and numbness followed by buckets of tears.
I went to Adelaide with Amelie, leaving my ever-hardworking darling MOTH to look after the other three kids and still try and work shift-work. I spent a week in Adelaide leading up to the funeral, which was an entire 15 days after her death (slight contrast to the timing of Yuri’s funeral!). It was an incredibly difficult and emotional time.
Two very sudden and tragic deaths in such a short time. It’s not surprising that it would impact the whole family. When I get tears in my eyes now, dear sweet Miss Amelie looks at me and says, “Who died, Mummy?”
I won’t bore you with all the other little hiccups we’ve had, but suffice it to say, I’ve been reminded again and again of how much a work in progress we all are. Every little hardship is used to shape us. We certainly don’t control the things that life can throw at us, but we can control our reactions to them. I pray that I continue to press deeper and deeper into my Heavenly Father’s arms in times of trial rather than railing against them.
Incredibly, I have felt amazingly calm and anchored throughout this year. I thank God for the peace I have in Him that transcends my limited ability to understand. While the storm rages above the surface of the ocean, beneath the waters are still and deep. When I am tossed around by the waves I try to remember to take a breath and swim down, down to where I am suspended in tranquillity. There I rest and am renewed, ready to return to the surface and check my ship isn’t sinking!

* MOTH – Man Of The House – used with his full permission (actually, I think he kind of likes it!)