To-ings and fro-ings

Following on from yesterday’s post I’ve been thinking that it’s been a bit of a week for thinking about death and loss. Now that’s a cheerful way to start! Little Owl discovered a baby rabbit dead underneath our garden bench today. She didn’t suggest we fix it, like she did with the flattened hedgehog. This time she understood that the rabbit wasn’t coming back. She even had a theory about how it died. She suggested that it had jumped over the bench and smacked it’s head on landing. She turned to look at the bench and said, with a big sigh, “Seat is dangerous for rabbits.” When did she learn to say dangerous?!

The necessary chopping down of the beloved horse chestnut where the rope swing hung was another opportunity to explore the difficult topic of life and death with Little Owl and I’m pleased that we’ve been able to do it quite naturally, as part of the normal rhythms of daily life here. Good news on the rope swing front is that we have installed a new swing on a wonderful old beech tree in the wood at the bottom of the garden. The ground falls away steeply so that when you swing out to the furthest point you really feel like you’re reaching for the stratosphere. Here’s Big Dreamer giving it a try.

To round off this post I’d like to recommend a feature that’s been broadcast as part of Radio 4’s PM programme this week. After the death of the newsreader, Rory Morrison, the show has been running a slot about what it is like to hear a recording of the voice of someone who has died. Each evening they’ve interviewed a listener about a recording of a deceased loved one and then played the clip. I know so many of us carry people in our hearts who aren’t around any longer. It’s not just that, we experience loss in all sorts of ways in our lives. Well, for anyone who’s feeling that particularly keenly at the moment, do go and listen to this feature. It’s very powerful and so uplifting. I was especially moved by Wednesday’s listener, a lady who had a tiny clip of her husband laughing, caught by accident on a jazz recording he played on. She spoke quietly and beautifully. I came away with a deep feeling of peace about all the to-ings and fro-ings in my life.