My father-in-law, 1928-2006

As my reader will have noticed I haven’t been blogging for several days: my father-in-law was rushed into intensive care on Saturday following a heart attack and died there on Sunday. I’ve been reflecting on how his lack of interest in spiritual matters has impacted us.

In the immediate aftermath of his death I faced the problem of how to tell our daughter Rebekah who is not quite three. In the end I compared to the death of the family dog last September. Just as the ‘doggy doctor’ wasn’t able to help him any more and Father God and Jesus said to our dog "Come to Heaven where we will make you better," so the doctors hadn’t been able to make Poorly Grand-dad (as she called him) better either, and so likewise Father God and Jesus had taken him to heaven to make him better.

I was dubious about giving this explanation, but it was the only one I could think of. I am by no means a universalist in my theology and while not for one moment would I ever want to do the fire and brimstone routine I didn’t want to tell her something that I’d need to backtrack on later, as if I had lied to her. I have taken refuge in the old approach that you don’t know what goes on between a dying person and God at the end, although I sometimes think that gets trotted out as the get-out-of-jail card.

I have remembered too a man who was always kind towards me and interested in what I was doing. Even if he really didn’t have a clue about my calling and profession, he always showed an interest. For that he was an example to many.

In particular my memory has gone back to his speech at our wedding. When Debbie told him she was going to remarry and to a ‘vicar’ he was quite worried. He knew he would have to watch his language in front of me (not that it seems he had in front of his daughter). To his credit he did his best on that. Only rarely did I hear him blaspheme – which I’ve always considered far worse than words beginning with ‘F’ and ‘C’. It was his way of showing respect – quite a theme in the light of recent events in the news, I think.

He also said that when he knew I was a ‘vicar’ he was worried about meeting me. Apparently what put him at ease was that I turned up wearing jeans. It made me recall the time I made a funeral visit to a young couple whose two-year-old had died of a brain tumour. I explained on the phone when making the appointment that my clerical shirts were in the wash and so I wouldn’t be turning up in a dog collar. At the end of the visit they told me how relieved they were that I had turned up in ‘civvies’. It made them realise I was just like them. They had truly feared meeting a ‘priest’.

That leaves me thinking how sad it is that non-Christians fear meeting
Christians and Christian leaders in this way. How unapproachable are
we? How detached from real life? How holier than thou?

Last Christmas I had to wrap and label my own present from him. I had a bit of fun with the label. On it I put his regular signing-off-on-the-phone expression: ‘All the best’. In a way I wish I could say that to him now, with deeper meaning. Rest in peace. All the best.

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