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Incomplete Puzzles Where does one go with the unanswered questions when a loved one leaves suddenly? No opportunity for a last goodbye They just open the door and without a second glance back go through it and lock it behind them so that you will not be able to call out after them And when I thought about it, the last words she said were, “Leave the door open.”  “Are you sure?” “Sure. It’s safe. I won’t be able to get up to unlock when the carer arrives.” But the next morning. The door was locked.  She who had left the door open only the day before had locked it.  She left on her own terms.  She took no bags this time.  No extra pyjamas.  She had laughed when she told me the day before how she had not actually needed the pyjamas I’d brought her.  But she had finished the book I’d packed in.  Past Tense by Lee Childs And now whenever we spoke of her, it would be in the past tense She had finished everything. Everything was perfectly finished. T

The Notalloweds and the Pusherbackers We woke up one day and everything had changed. The rules had changed. The world had changed. The landscape had even changed. Suddenly our electrified fences and security gates and alarm systems were no longer enough to keep the danger out. Somehow an enemy, stealthier than we could have imagined, was able to find its way not through an open window but under the door, beyond the mask under our skin and into our very soul. It even defied the gallons of soap and sanitiser so virulent it was. It wasn’t a virus, the one that could be debated about and put under a microscope and vaccinated against. It came in the form of something way more subtle and stealthy. It attached itself to our value system and our world view and challenged us to take our social temperature daily; to strip away the mask we’d worn for years as we started giving account of who we were and where we’d come from.  It wasn’t a colour.  It wasn’t a race.  It wasn’t a reli

Are we there yet? In these strange times, do you sometimes wake and ask yourself the question: Are we there yet?  Do you remember those journeys with our parents when all we wanted was to get to our destination? The journey was the most tedious part and it seemed like it would never end. We might never get there, wherever there was. Patience is a hard taskmaster but if we will sit under its tutelage we will emerge better, stronger, more resilient, kinder, less impatient with ourselves and with others and see the beauty more easily in the imperfect around us. Enjoy the small moments of wonder and revel in minor achievements and simply be instead of waiting impatiently for that which may take longer than we would like it to.   Are we there yet? Maybe we will never be there, wherever there may be. Maybe there is here and now …