It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things. An e-mail from the church said there would be an ice cream social and a hymn sing last night. Glued as I've been to the Olympics, I decided I'd take an evening off for some ice cream and some good old hymn singing. The incongruity of ice cream and hymns didn't bother me - I love both. So I took myself off to the parish hall to meet up with many familiar to me, friends from the community chorale I sing with, and other acquaintances from church. Mary Grace was our leader, with delightful, comfortable old hymns to sing - I sat next to dear Pat, whom I adore - and Fred, two down from me at the table; cute Beth next to me, and Owen and Betsy across the table. I finally got to meet Pat's son, Jared, an acquaintance from Facebook, who turned out to be an extremely accomplished pianist. There was a smattering of others I didn't know - but we were all eagerly holding onto hymnals and song books and Xerox copies of out-of-print hymns. We sang lustily, with a lot of smiles and laughter, invisibly bound together by the spirit of the music and the words.
I put in a request - a hymn with an unpronounceable Welsh title we'd sung at my husband's memorial service - but everyone knows it, and everyone who has ever attended a Christian service has sung it at one time or another - and anyone who has ever attended a sporting event in the British Isles has heard it sung as a "team song" of sorts. They say it's the un-official national anthem of Wales. I've always loved it for its phrases in the refrain - in English - "...grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour..."
A woman across the room who looked vaguely familiar to me absolutely beamed, obviously delighted by my hymn choice. After the singing was finished, she came over to me and said, "Linda, I was so thrilled to sing that hymn again. I used to sing with a Wesh chorus!" Who was this woman? And how did she know my name? Later, out in the parking lot, I discovered she was a fellow yacht club member - and two of her grandchildren had been students in the sailing school my husband founded And a few paragraphs later, I learned she'd been widowed four months less than I - and she invited me back to her house for a chat.
We spent the next two or so hours sitting in her living room, with a beautiful breeze from the bay blowing in through the windows, chatting like old friends and comparing notes on how we'd survived the loss of the love of our lives. (She'd had about 4 years' advance notice - I'd had only 16 weeks.)
And upon reflecting on the evening, it struck me that I'd made a new friend with whom I have so many common bonds - someone who really understands how I'm feeling - and someone who doesn't share a past with me that includes my husband. And vice versa. And I'm learning, in this vast wilderness of widowhood, that it is important for my own mental and emotional health, to establish "solitary" relationships. I don't mean that I want to wipe out memories of my husband, or exclude him - but I appreciate the new relationships that are part of my journey alone. I've been half of a whole for so long, I really don't know who I am anymore.
So God sent me an angel named Anne, all wrapped in ice cream and Sunday School hymns - and it just has to be more than a coincidence.
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