A voice worth listening to...

I didn’t get to the phone quick enough.  There was Andrew’s voice, 

“I’m sorry we can’t get to the phone, please leave a message.”

It didn’t make me cry.   

Sometimes I wish it would.  

His voice is comforting.  I’ve heard it so many times since he died.  We did a lot of radio together including some charity projects and I still have the tapes.

One project we did together about a month before we married.  We got up extra early to do the breakfast show.  He didn’t let me talk much, I did the weather forecast in the style of The Bible, well it was a Christian radio project!

“It came to pass on the fifth day of the month that the rain came to pass.   

But it is a wise man who takes his brolly with him.”

That sort of thing.

I love listening to Andrew’s voice, especially when he says my name.  At the start of one show he says, “What a suave, sophisticated look she’s got this morning.”

I can just see us sitting in the studio that he had built.  Chatting and laughing between the records.  He seemed to know exactly what records to play, each one is part of him and somehow part of us.

No it doesn’t make me cry to hear his voice.

What makes me cry is when I get the chance to STOP!  When I’m suddenly confronted with the realisation of what’s happened and I don’t know what else to DO.

On Sunday at church I sobbed through the worship songs.  It was the first time I was in church since the funeral with nothing else to DO.  I wasn’t on any rota all I had to do was just BE ME.   

God gave me the gift of a safe moment with friends where I could just let go.  And He’s graciously given me more times since, with friends to hold my hand.

It’s like the anaesthetic is wearing off and I’m beginning to feel the pain of my loss.  The numbness is losing its grip and reality really hurts.

There are times when the pain is hidden by all the DOING.  I’m always so busy. 

I’m doing lots - for me, for the boys, for my family, for friends.  Sorting out a secure future with the finances, sorting out STUFF I no longer need.  Getting on with the everyday day to day routine of running a home.

It all takes so much time.

Each week I sit and write in my diary what I have to DO each day.  Each week without fail something comes along to spoil my plans and there is a day which is a complete write off.  I don’t achieve what I want to but my day takes another direction.

Today is one of those days but as I sit here I am still doing more than one thing!  I have at least three jobs on the go but I had to start typing this while it’s going round my head.

I really am “doing” too much and not “being”.  It’s sort of what I was trying to get at when I wrote a couple of weeks ago about people asking me “how are you doing?”   

It’s not really the question that bothers me but the wording.

I NEED to start to say NO – I can’t do that right now. 

Maybe I should start by letting the answer phone pick up all my calls even if I am in.  That way I can hear Andrew’s calming voice more often

and STOP

and maybe cry…