I have been silent on this blog for well over 5 weeks. That's the longest interruption since I started writing here in 2007. The reason is unarguably valid. On Christmas Eve, December 24th our loved and lovely daughter Aileen, died suddenly and unexpectedly. The silence here is a consequence of sorrow, and the essential ways in which love responds to an all but overwhelming loss.
On the death of someone so definitive and rooted in who we are as a family, practical things need attending to; priorities are reset with ruthless singularity of purpose; mourning goes along with careful and loving management as itself a signal of deepest love and deepest loss.
Much that could be done has been done, in her memory and in our love for her. Our lives, so diminished and depleted by Aileen's going from us, will take time to recover and find a new shape which carries her presence forward in our family and amongst her friends, as it turns our her many and different friends.
There may come a time when I will be able to reflect more fully on all that has happened. But not now, and not until there are perspectives other than loss, sorrow, and mourning, at present not made easier by memories, but made bearable by our gratitude for Aileen's gift to us of her presence, her personality and the love she gave and inspired.
Aileen loved Aberdeenshire, and the view of Bennachie from any angle in a range of 20 miles is one of the images that she enjoyed whether sunset or sunrise, rain or sunshine, spring or winter or autumn or winter.
Living Wittily is a blog that attempts to explore how to live wisely and well, as a person of Christian faith, without arid certainties, with life shaping convictions, and with a wide angled lens on human life and experience. I will continue to write here, but as someone inevitably transformed, and I hope both deepened and made more open, by the gift and the loss of Aileen, whose coming amongst us was such joy, and whose going from us into the safe arms of God is the deepest sadness of our lives.
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