Mama's Haven

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On Death

Published by Oana

I have been talking a lot about death this week.

And to me, that is natural now. I do not talk about death in a morbid and obsessive way, as some might think.

Death pops up in my conversations. In my blog posts. On my Facebook.

And since my son is dead, I do not mind talking about the subject.

It is my way of keeping my son alive, paradoxical as it may sound.

This week, Lexi, another beautiful bereaved mummy, agreed to publish Georgie’s story on her baby loss blog. Of course, death was part of the story, as it is part of every baby loss story on her website.

This week, I had lunch with an amazing woman who had spent some of her youth nursing abandoned Romanian AIDS babies not back to health, as she would have wished but onto death. And of course, we talked about pain and death and the great privilege of looking after precious souls so close to their passing into eternity hour and the love we feel for them.

Yesterday, I exchanged emails with another recently bereaved mummy. And of course, we talked about our sons and their final days and their death and about the immense hole they left in our souls.

This week, I wrote about Heaven. And of course, the only way to get there is through death so my post was not very popular despite the fact that death was not mentioned as such.

I had one message though, that struck a cord with me following my blog post. It was about the need to talk about death more as a society. About how death news is received with blank stares and even blanker responses in church and how the bereaved are pushed in a corner instead of being allowed to express their grief and sorrow.

And then, this week, I was asked to teach for a few hours and one of the things we talked about was Easter week. And guess what? Death was in that story too, even in the Lego version we watched, so it can be age appropriate for the children:

I have not been able to listen to worship or hear sermons since before Christmas. They just do not align with what we saw and felt, our experience and our loss and it would feel extremely phony to stand there “worshiping” while my heart is drowning in questions.

But you know what I was able to do? I was able to watch the Easter story. And I did feel God whisper, ever so gently to my heart:

“Now you understand. Now you know how it felt, losing a Son. Now we share the reality of loss, you and I.”

So maybe I won’t be able to worship Him. And maybe He does not even expect me to.

Because now, I worship Him in “spirit and in truth.” Now I really know how He must have felt in His spirit when Jesus died and I know the truth of death.

Thank you to each and every one of you who opened up to me this week and shared about your painful experiences and about the death of your loved ones.

I have felt as if we were worshiping God together in our sharing, in our rawness, in our pain.

True worship.

Because death was never meant to be and will never be the end of the story. It is just a part, an essential part of it but not the end.

Feel free to talk to me about your departed loved ones. Their stories need shared and heard and are to God as good an worship act as any.

Our loved ones were created by Him and are still very much in His heart, as they are in ours. Keeping them alive through reminiscing honours Him for the beautiful Creator that He is.

How Heaven will be like…

Published by Oana

Thoughts of Heaven have been filling my head lately.

Following Georgie’s death, I deconstructed everything that I was told to believe in.

Slowly, slowly, a new perception and world view have emerged.

I have reconstructed the world through the prism of our loss.

The world needs to make sense to me as it stands now, a world where loss and pain are very real.

There is a word we have in Romanian, “dor”. A word very hard to translate.

It is more than missing.

It is more than yearning for someone.

It is that deep, deep longing in one’s heart that can never be satisfied once someone you love passes away.

I miss my son. I yearn for his presence. I long to be with him. My being is at times struck down, literally, with the burden of loss.

So Heaven as it was portrayed to me in church, as I was growing up, does not make sense anymore.

We were created unique and savagely independent and in need of expression.

So you know what I think?

That Heaven will be what we dream it to be, in our moments of quiet and reverie and peace.

Heaven will be…freedom. Freedom to be what we were created to be. Freedom to be what we longed to be all along. Freedom to be ourselves, in all our splendour.

Heaven will be…long chats by the sea. Dinner parties with friends that will last for days. Dancing parties that will never exhaust us. Revealing ourselves for who we truly are with zero fear of rejection or misinterpretation or conflict. Complete harmony. Sentences that always find an end in each other’s hearts. Micro and macro community at its finest, its best, its most beautiful.

Heaven will be…trips into the unknown. The unknown of ourselves and of the world. We are beautiful beings, infinite in creativity, ingenuity and depth of love. Heaven will be the awesome and continuous discovery of who we really are and what this world really is. Imagine, travelling without borders or need of passports or money…Endless, spontaneous, childish giddiness of discovery.

Heaven will be…rest. Not so much physical rest but a metaphysical rest, the realisation that we have arrived, that feeling of it cannot get any better, rest in the sense of…well…peace.

Peace, deeply seated in our souls, peace, never ending, peace, overflowing.

No more striving need to achieve anything. No more torment. No more wishing for more.

A peace that our souls will know as the long sought after yearning we had while on earth.

Heaven will be…home. It will be home as we know it or wish it or dream it in our hearts. For some, it will be quiet and serene. For others, loud and full of life and family and pets and light.

For me, Heaven will be being with the people I have loved. Heaven will be being always together, cooking and eating and laughing and cuddling and reading stories and loving each other into eternity.

And God will be there, overlooking it all, smiling on us all and our little bits of Heaven.

Heaven will be love never ending.

Never parting.

Never suffering.

Never saying goodbye, ever again…

Images, courtesy of Unsplash.

A weekend in Bray, county Wicklow

Published by Oana

We are definitely enjoying our weekends together at the moment! To the point that we plan the following before the present is over, sort of thing :-).

We enjoyed our Armagh trip so much so that as soon as we got home, we had to book through our next one straight away, through Lidl breaks!

This time, it had to be the south of Ireland and Bray.

Alex has particularly enjoyed the challenge of putting together fun things we could do and this time, he had a whole list, bullet points and all! Very organised and much appreciated, as the homework saved us a lot of legwork and stress upon arrival and pointed us in the right directions.

According to his well-documented research, Bray’s Saturday farm market was worth a visit so that is where we started.

Alex’s research was spot on accurate, loads of organic and sensibly priced local produce and lovely treats to be had! We loved the brand new, homemade hot chocolate stall: the Madagascar cocoa, the organic local milk and the flavoursome sugar made one of the best hot chocolates we had ever tasted! Even picky Emma couldn’t fault it and the lady running the business is a sweetheart too!

We left the market well supplied in goodies and ready for a walk on the beautiful Bray promenade, which was warm and sunny but a bit blustery, like the Dubliners themselves :-).

After loads of coffee and playtime in the park, it was time for more exploration.

Last weekend, we visited Armagh’s planetarium, this time, it had to be Bray’s aquarium :-).

I found the admission prices a bit steep, 11.50 euro per grown up and 8.50 euro per child but in the end, it was well worth it!

We were smiled at by piranhas, we petted starfish and sea urchins, admired the gracious dance of a playful seahorse and were nearly jumped upon by a curious stingray!

The most mesmerising view was the massive sea water tank at the end, with the sharks and other big fish floating above us. It felt like another dimension, so quiet and serene and tranquil. I loved it, I could have sat there for hours to look at the fish dancing in circles of harmony.

Dinner was inspired by the visit and it had to be fish and chips :-).

We were given a tip about a local chippy and it did live to its reputation! The fish was absolutely gorgeous, fresh and plentiful and the batter crispy. And the chips were hand cut and downright tasty. Worth more than the 15 euro we paid for it, our lovely fish supper. The lady in the shop is worth a mention too, Alex went after closing time so she sacrificed her own dinner and let us enjoy a taste of authentic Bray. Much appreciated, thank you!

We stayed in Wilton Hotel Bray. Our family room was huge but the decor a bit faded. Emma had great fun playing jungle huts and hide and seek games and the beds were comfortable and clean. Recommended for family stays as breakfast is varied and plentiful and the rooms cater for bigger families. Not recommended for romantic getaways or couple weekends away as the hotel is pretty basic in facilities and entertainment offers.

We are back to Newcastle and Daisy Lodge next weekend, what are your Mother Day’s plans?

A day out in county Armagh

Published by Oana

We really enjoyed the last weekend. So much so that we couldn’t wait for this one to come around!

This time, we decided to head towards Armagh, it has been ages since I was that way and Alex came up with a very well-documented plan of action which we followed loosely 😉

Our first stop was Portadown, I hadn’t been before but I was really keen to go as that is where BittyButton has its shop. I had known of BittyButton since it was a one woman operation with a small Facebook page. Emma had a personalised hat made when she was two by the very kind grandma of the owner.

I haven’t taken a photo of what I bought as they were mainly gifts but I would highly recommend a visit, especially if you are into stationery, easy crafts and Christian artsy things. Oh, and buttons, of course :-):

We continued on to Armagh after our delightful stop and we took the scenery route as we wanted to show Emma the apple orchards. She expected apples on the trees and was a bit disappointed but I found the orchards beautiful, even at the end of winter and bare. Hills and hills covered in them:

Emma was going through a growth spur and despite the fact that she had been up from 6.30 a.m. and been eating more or less the whole time, she got hungry again so we decided lunch was in order, before the planned visit to the Armagh Planetarium.

Alex had included places to eat in his printed guide and one in particular had got my attention so we decided to give it a go. We didn’t regret it!

The Moody Boar Bistro and Restaurant is very ingeniously located in the former stables of the Armagh Palace Demesne grounds.

The service was quick, the waiters pleasant and confident and the food beautifully presented and flavoursome. I ordered a small burger and Alex went for their chicken salad, which came beautifully garnished and intriguingly flavoured on a bed of celeriac, rocket and roasted peppers.

Definitely would recommend a visit and not to forget, please accompany your meal with one of the local ciders, as we did:

Filled to the gills, we decided for a quick run around the beautiful playground placed on the same palace grounds, before heading out, chased by the pouring rain:

The Armagh Planetarium was our next stop and thanks to hubby’s organisational skills, was a success as well. I am sure that for older children the planetarium would be a hit on its own but Emma enjoyed the star show mainly and learning about planets and constellations and the sun. She found it fascinating and although Alex snoozed a couple of times in the dark, she was more alert than both of us and repeated the show almost word by word afterwards!

After the Planetarium we decided to head home but on the way we stopped to pick some fresh fruit and veggies from Chapman’s Farm Fresh, a local greengrocer’s.

We were a bit baffled to find out that out of the probably 10 varieties of apples in store only one was local but we got some cracking bacon, parsnips and local potatoes plus goose and organic chicken eggs.