Healing and Joy

A number of years ago I taught a girl singing that for the purposes of this blog we’ll name ‘Claire.’

If I’m honest, I didn’t especially enjoy teaching her. She wasn’t a terrible singer, but she never practiced and it was like getting blood from a stone when you tried to prise any chat, energy or emotion out of her. She was determined to do musical theatre so this was tricky at times.

We were doing a particularly lively upbeat song and I was trying to get her to express the intense joy the character was feeling in this moment. I asked her,

‘Can you remember a time when you felt complete and total happiness?’

She pondered this for a moment before replying ‘no.’

I wasn’t initially surprised, she was a sullen teenager and perhaps she just needed a bit more encouragement. I continued,

‘Maybe it was at a wedding, or you had an amazing Christmas, or you went on the best holiday ever and you thought, this is incredible!!?’

She thought slightly longer this time before replying

‘No I can’t think of anything.’

I was utterly dumbfounded. And I also felt really sad for her. I was able to think of a time only in the previous week when I felt such joy and she had never felt that!

Anyway, fast forward a lot of years. After Andrew got sick, one of my great frustrations was that everything was tinged with sadness. Even when I felt happy, it wasn’t that all consuming joy I had felt in the past. The first time I felt that all consuming joy was when my sister told me she was pregnant. I was just so completely and utterly delighted for her that I forgot all of the sadness for a moment.

I called my podcast  ‘are you over it yet’ because I don’t think you ever really get over the death of someone so close to you. (Shameless ad for my podcast which will be out with a new episode very soon!)

But sometimes I realise how much healing I have done, because more often, I feel that joy that poor Claire had never felt. Today for a while I sat in my garden on the swing seat with a cup of tea and wee treat in hand. The sun was shining, my children bounced about happily in the paddling pool, (not arguing at this moment) I’d finished cutting the grass (with small help as can be seen in the photo) so the garden smelt lovely, and the whole thing was perfect. Just a really lovely moment of delightfulness.

Of course, I was pulled unceremoniously out of my moment with cries of ‘Mummy!! Freddie hit me!!’ Back to reality! But despite the abrupt end, for a while it was utter joy and I felt no sadness. I think that’s healing. I imagine that’s what heaven is like all the time.

Over and out

Ruth