Yesterday afternoon, I went to Kelvingrove Museum to listen to the organ recital with the intent of remembering my Mum as well as listening to some music.  I'm not sure what I hoped to feel, but whatever it was, I didn't expect it to be as benignly pleasant as it was.  I recalled the visit my family made there, which was a happy memory.  I recalled visiting with other friends.  I imagined my Mum as teenager standing on the upper level looking down at the huge area where, now there's a coffee shop and a melee of visitors.

Today, I opted for the walking nostalgia route, which includes a lot of my own favourite places.  Mum always reckoned that Glasgow Green had a 'bad' feel due to the executions - I still don't sense that, but I had a nice wander.  Back along Sauchiehaul Street, past Sandiford place where her parents rented a flat when they  moved to Glasgow, past La Belle Allee where they were church officers for the Christian Science Church.  Through Kelvingrove Park, past what was once Woodside Senior Secondary School, and then via the Kelvin Walkway into the Botanic Gardens.  All places she knew, that were important in her life.  As a young woman she roved freely throughout this great city, the mileage I covered today reflecting what she might well have done herself (albeit she probably used trams rather than feet!).  I imagined myself telling her about what I'd seen - not the catching myself forgetting that I can't, kind of thing, but a deliberate, pretend conversation.

And I read the funeral service out loud 'to' her... or her as she looks in the photo we're using; her as I remember her watching my every move at the funeral I conducted for my cousin (after which she told me I had done a good job); her as a warm, living person who wouldn't pull her punches if she didn't like what I said! And I think she was OK with it. Which means I'm OK with it.

Just about everything that can be done has been done. Tomorrow morning I head south, and enter 'radio silence' until Thursday.  I have received oodles of well wishes, cards, hugs, promises of prayers and 'vibes' and know that many, many people 'have got my back', so all will be well, whatever 'well' looks like on the day.

Savour your lives, gentle readers, and enjoy recalling old, and making new, memories.  Life is fleeting and frail, but the memories we make and the love we share, these are a legacy beyond price.

Memories of baking... and baking new memories...

When I was a child, my Mum always spent most of Saturday afternoon baking.

When we were very small, we loved to "help" and I can recall standing on a chair with plastic blue-and-white gingham style seat covers, at a drop leaf table stirring whatever it was with gusto, whilst my siblings did the same.  Licking spoons (I never quite understood why I was meant to like raw cake mixture!) and squabbling over got to do what were all part of a deliciously untidy pattern of life.

By the time we were teens, helping wasn't fun any more, but, along with whichever friends happened to be round, we soon polished off each week's offerings.  Butterfly cakes, fairy cakes, fruit buns, plain buns... these were staples, along side 'slicing' cakes such as coffee walnut, coconut, rich fruit, cherry (with properly distributed fruit) and Victoria sponge. Plain or cheese scones, the former often with homemade jam, the latter an excuse for butter rather than marge!

So, knowing I have folk round for 'tea and cake' later today, I decided to bake in her honour.  Butterfly cakes are probably the only 'authentic' throw back but the others have the 'essence' of what she used to make.

Our school friends always said my Mum made the best cakes - alas, for us who had them every week, it was the tantalising bought cakes at their homes we craved!  So, I also bought the one thing that my Mum craved whenever she thought of Scotland (which were available in Northampton, just beyond her budget at the time) - Tunnock Caramel Wafers.

It's been fun to bake (even if my kitchen now looks like my mum's did forty years ago!) and good to recall happy, uncomplicated family times.

The saying, 'it's OK not to be OK' is much-used and very valuable in recognising the detrimental effect that suppressing or repressing emotions and realities can have.

Sometimes, though, what is needed is the converse: 'it's OK to be OK' even when the more common response/reaction is to be 'not OK'.

The little book, Loss of a Parent: Adult Grief when Parents Die, by Theresa Jackson, is not hugely profound, and it's certainly not innovative, rather it is permission giving... It recognises and affirms exactly what I say to others about the validity of any form of grief that is authentic.  So, at one level I didn't need to spend the hour or so it took to read it. But the fact that it does just that is important, because it tells me what I need to hear: it validates my unique experience, and says 'it is OK to be OK' if that is what is OK for me.

I have another, fatter, 'deeper, book to read, It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand  by Megan Devine, so it will be interesting to see if that helps me in being OK with being OK (or any other state) in a culture where it feels that it's not OK to be OK!!

I am valuing the quieter days, now that all the organising is done, the chance to balance a bit of normality with some time to reflect, and to absorb the reality and finality of the death of my mother.

This morning was my first scheduled Care Home Chaplaincy (1/80 time) session.  I was tempted to postpone it - what if it triggered an unhelpful grief reaction. I thought about what my Mum would have said - which was to pull myself together and get on with it - so I went.

And I am very glad I did, because I had a lovely, fun morning, meeting people of all 'stripes', some of whom wanted prayers and others who didn't, some who chatted and others who said, 'not today'.

My two hours flew past.  I booked in my sessions for the rest of the year and left with a spring in my step and a smile on my face.

I don't like the expression 'grief work', but if part of what it looks like for me is 'caring for others who could so easily have been my mum' then I am more than happy to roll with it!

Rather belatedly, some thoughts on the BUGB-BMS Assembly in Peterborough

For me, this year, Assembly was a welcome distraction from the 'not-quite Holy Saturday' experience of travelling down following my mother's sudden death and not being able to register that until the coroner had agreed a PM wasn't needed.  Seeing many friends from across the UK (mostly England and Wales, a few from Scotland) was good, and is always part of what it's all about.

I absolutely loved the music used in worship - songs in many languages and of many styles. No 'worship band' but keyboard, drums (very skilfully employed for once) and singers of several ethnicities from one church.  Beautiful, meaningful, authentic.

In order to give us the opportunity to attend two serminars - with an excellent choice - the plenary had been pared back more than ever, and the addresses so short that they were unable to develop the ideas.  One phrase I loved, and which stuck is that "we are NOT called to be be bouncers for the Kingdom"... not for us to decide who is in/out, nor to protect the institution from those we deem not quite 'nice'.  Challenging stuff.

Of course I had some niggles, and via the wonder of Twitter, expressed them.  Of course some things have to be re-learned with every new set of people 'up front'.  Of course it wasn't perfect.

The photo above shows myself and a friend marking the centenary of ordained Baptist women in ministry in England and Wales, by wearing tee-shirts we bought from the USA Network of Baptist Women in Ministry.  According to R, I am her 'pioneering friend', so when, during the closing worship, there was an invitation for those who believed themselves to be in pioneering ministries to put their hands up whilst someone from the front prayed, I did... even though it's not my thing or my style.

As Baptists we don't get everything anywhere near right, and sometimes we get things very, very, wrong but I firmly believe that God loves us, calls and equips us for works of service in many ways and many places.

After Assembly, a small group of us went for a meal.  We rocked with laughter. We shared sorrows.  We were communion in pasta and fizzy water. Then we scattered, some to hotels, some home, some to stay with friends... and it was good.