Turn the page

Last week I started reading Tom Wright's book "Surprised by hope". Jen bought it for me (at my request) from Koorong in June, but as it turned out she started reading it first. That's good, because the book gives a helpful analysis of the Christian belief in resurrection (not merely "life beyond death") and its implications for life now. There was a bookmark at page 64, made out of a folded up hospital menu from her stay in early July.

A few days ago I reached her bookmark and turned the page. Now I've read on to part that she never reached (no, Jen was not generally one for peeking at the ending). I'm pleased that Tom Wright is the kind of author who outlines his major ideas early, so Jen more or less knew what was coming. Nevertheless, I still come across insights that I'd like to share with her.

After Jen came out of hospital, I bought her a copy of A. S. Byatt's "The Children's Book", which she'd been wanting to read (and a bag of strawberry creams to go with it). In her last week she was mostly too dopey to concentrate on books, and so she never started the book. Now I have begun that one too, and am enjoying it for her.

At the start of the year I started a diary to slow down time. It's black-covered, a week to a page. Now I've gone several pages past the week of Jen's death. Each time I turn the page, I go further beyond what Jen knew and experienced. Eventually it will not be a few pages, but a shelf of volumes -- the future of our boys, the course of our world, the outcomes of our hopes. Only in God's final kingdom we will perhaps have a chance to discuss it.