Easter Revisited

COVER

“IT’S a sair fecht,” muttered the old man as he stumbled along with the aid of his stick, followed by his arthritic three-legged dog.

“I think I’ll struggle to get back to the house in one piece.”

The Reverend J Clarence McGonigall, the retired but far from retiring minister of Inversnecky North, linked with Scunner South, linked with Trachle (Continuing), linked with Havers Memorial, was speaking to his ancient mutt, Squeegee.

Like her master, Squeegee had seen better days: for instance, the years when she had four working legs. She had lost a limb in Scunner when she instinctively ran after a speeding car from which the driver had thrown a scone.

Mind you, the ever-resourceful Squeegee had turned the situation to her advantage: she had quickly developed the kind of pathetic look that would get a scone at any door. Clarence had noticed that Squeegee exaggerated her limp when she approached a house.

“You could win an Oscar with that act,” Clarence told Squeegee.

“You could get a Creative Scotland grant for doing your limping gig at the Edinburgh Festival. Seeing we are in the season of Lent,” Clarence went on, “maybe you should give up scones for a while.”

Squeegee pretended she hadn’t heard what her master was saying.

When they got back home, Clarence busied himself with household chores: next, he put the soup on – tinned mushroom soup. It tasted alright. Squeegee stared at Clarence while her master morosely ate his lunch. Why was his beloved pet doing that? It suddenly dawned on Clarence that not for the first time – he had forgotten to give Squeegee her breakfast. Clarence sighed. Then he fell asleep.

The truth is that the Reverend J Clarence McGonigall wasn’t a domestic animal at all. Housekeeping wasn’t his thing, never had been. But what was his thing? That was the question that haunted him in the wee small hours. He would lie awake for ages, agonising over his current situation. After all, he wouldn’t see 85 again. His sight wasn’t what it was – he had been on the waiting list for cataract operations for some time.

In his mind, he would go over again and again the battles he had had with staf at the Kirk’s custom-built headquarters in Livingston (having sold of the old building at 121 George Street, Edinburgh for £3.4m).

Clarence stood up to begin the service. He shouted, “Christ is Risen!” and the joyful response came back, “He is Risen Indeed!”

His opposition to the Kirk’s centralising and modernising tendency – how he hated the ecclesiastical management-speak and the targets for ministers – had been passionate, vociferous and colourful, but had it been ef ective? He doubted it. He feared that ministers of Word and Sacrament were becoming primarily administrators, increasingly answerable to a centralised bureaucracy.

Another thing that had kept Clarence awake at night for years had been the suicide of his daughter, Mary. Her life had been wrecked by drugs, and she had been abandoned by her partner after the birth of her only child, Kenneth James. They hadn’t seen Kenneth for years. It was an open wound in his life – and it wasn’t the only one.

Clarence McGonigall woke up with a start. He looked straight into the eyes of Squeegee, who had been licking his face.

“We’re late, Squeegee!” he shouted.

“Thanks for waking me up, clever girl!” Squeegee stared intently at him. After feeding his famished hound, Clarence went out to the car. Squeegee jumped into the passenger seat – her usual berth – while her master turned on the ignition. The car almost seemed to know where it was going – after all, it was the same routine every afternoon…

It was about three years ago when Clarence first noticed that his beloved wife Agnes was withdrawing from life.

The normally ebullient Aggie had gradually become more subdued.

She had stopped teasing Clarence about his campaigns against what he called “The Livingston Mai a”. She had given up her jocular suggestions – much enjoyed by Squeegee – that her dog was brighter than her husband. It was when Aggie started calling him “Squeegee” that Clarence started to become alarmed. Clarence became even more alarmed when Aggie would suddenly disappear. On one occasion, she was spotted in the local supermarket dressed in her nightie and slippers.

When the dementia diagnosis was delivered, it was not a surprise – but it was still a shock.

Aggie had always been Clarence’s stable ‘rock’, but now she was entirely unpredictable.

As a man who had never spent much time in the kitchen – “I’m a Neanderthal” – he had to learn how to cook. Delia’s books – starting with the one that taught the reader how to boil an egg – were a godsend. Clarence was always amazed when a meal turned out all right; Squeegee was always amazed when she was fed at all. As Aggie’s condition deteriorated, it became clear to the local social work department that Clarence was simply not coping. When it was put to him at a case conference that the time had come for Aggie – who was present at the meeting in the body, but not in the mind – to go into residential care, Clarence became distressed. While he understood the logic of the situation, his heart was breaking.

A suitable room for Agnes was found in the care home at Trachle, not far away from Scunner. Clarence would talk to her about what was in the newspaper headlines. She showed little interest. When he referred to Mary’s boy, Kenneth, she looked at Clarence blankly. It was so sad. Clarence found himself babbling on, hoping to get a response of some kind: he might have been speaking in Serbo-Croat.

He would return home from these encounters with a heavy weight of sorrow upon him. He didn’t have much of an appetite for food he had cooked himself, though he quite enjoyed some of the ready meals he picked up at the local Co-op. He thanked God for the invention of the microwave. Mind you, that was about as much praying as he did. He was shocked to realise that the man who had advised the members of his congregation to remain steadfast in prayer, especially in hard times, was unable to pray himself. Mealtimes were the worst part of the day. He found the sight of the empty chair at the table almost unbearable. It was as if there had been a death in the family. Nevertheless, Clarence remained steadfast in his commitment to sit with Aggie every afternoon: which is why he and Squeegee were in the car, heading towards Trachle.

Clarence leaned over to switch on the car radio. He was amazed when his favourite hymn came l ooding through the stereo system.

He immediately sang along with the choir: And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood?

Died he for me, who caused his pain? For me, who him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Clarence was well into his stride as he roared out Charles Wesley’s great hymn.

Squeegee howled along with his master.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night; thine eye dif used a quickening ray; I woke, the dungeon l amed with light; my chains fell of, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

By the end of the verse, Clarence McGonigall found that he was crying.

The liberating words “my chains fell of, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee” had triggered tears of sorrow that had been suppressed for far too long. He had to pull into a layby. As Clarence continued weeping, Squeegee kept licking him, comforting him.

Clarence heard the radio announcer say he hoped that the listeners had enjoyed the hymns for Good Friday. Good Friday? what did he mean?

Yes, the Reverend J Clarence McGonigall had forgotten that it was Good Friday.

He had forgotten because he had been preoccupied with other overwhelming matters. Wesley’s beautiful words of grace had ambushed him, had arrested him, had compelled him to face his own woundedness.

God had spoken to him with great tenderness – and so had a three-legged dog by the name of Squeegee.

But if the hymn singing had exhilarated Clarence, the next item on the radio flattened him.

A cleric was being interviewed about dementia. The cleric argued that a person whose spouse suf ered badly from dementia should feel entitled to divorce their spouse and start a new life on the grounds that the spouse “was no longer the person they once knew”.

“Has it come to this?” Clarence shouted.

“Don’t tell me it has come to this.”

When Clarence arrived at the care home, Heather Macdonald, the matron, took one look at Clarence, and gave him a hug.

“Clarence McGonigall, you’ve been crying.

Let me make you a cup of tea and give you a big piece of home-made carrot cake. I know it’s your favourite. You can tell me about what’s been going on with you, if you want. First of all, let me take Squeegee in to see the guests.”

Squeegee was a great favourite in the home. When she limped into the guest room in her exaggerated, theatrical way, they all cried, “Aww” and wanted to pet her.

While, like all thespians, she welcomed the attention, she wanted scones even more.

One of the guests summoned a staff member and asked her to bring some scones for poor Squeegee.

The staf member curtsied towards Squeegee, then brought him some newly baked scones from the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Clarence McGonigall was woli ng down delicious carrot cake and pouring out his troubles to Heather Macdonald. He totally trusted Heather, who was an elder at Scunner. She was also a skilled and compassionate counsellor.

She told Clarence that he needed to look after himself, as well as caring for Aggie and Squeegee.

“Remember, Clarence, that Jesus tells you to love your neighbour as yourself,” said Heather. She also, shrewdly, asked him if he would conduct a little Communion service in the home on Easter Day. “I’ll be glad to do that, Heather, as long as I can remember that it’s Easter Day,” said Clarence, who had confessed his Good Friday sin to Heather.

Clarence then went in, with Squeegee, to Aggie’s room. Aggie made a fuss of Squeegee, who licked her enthusiastically.

As she often did, she stared at Clarence, showing no signs of recognition. “Does the name Clarence McGonigall mean anything to you?” she asked her husband of sixty years. Clarence paused, then said, “And it was the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.”

Then he hugged his darling wife and left with his faithful dog.

Easter Day. Clarence hadn’t forgotten. In fact, he hadn’t slept the night before. He got up and read more of Sally Magnusson’s excellent book about dementia. He noted what Sally had said about the potential importance of music for dementia suf erers, and he had recorded Easter hymns on his ancient tape recorder. Just listening to the hymns had energised him. He had felt on that fateful Good Friday, when he had sung and cried, that he was emerging from a dark and fearful place in his life. He realised that his failure to engage honestly with his own ‘shadow’ was making him ill. The Good Friday hymns on the radio had taken him out of the tape-loops of his own misery and had put him back in touch with the spiritual resources of the Christian faith that had sustained him over many years.

When Clarence turned up for the service at the care home, Heather was putting a pristine white cloth on the table. Clarence carefully placed the communion cup and plate on the table. He opened a new bottle of Merlot and poured some into the cup.

Half a dozen people – staf and residents – had turned up. Clarence turned on the tape recorder: he was pleased to see that some of the ‘congregation’ were singing along with the hymn tunes even though they had no hymn books – showing that at least some of the neural pathways that had been laid down many years ago were still functioning.

Clarence stood up to begin the service.

He shouted, “Christ is Risen!” and the joyful response came back, “He is Risen Indeed!”

Clarence swung round to pick up his notes, but in so doing his hand struck the Communion cup and knocked it over. Damn those cataracts. As a big red stain started to spread over the white cloth, Heather came forward with a new cloth. Clarence waved her away. “The blood is shed,” was all he said. “Let it be so.”

Clarence read the Communion liturgy. Then he picked up the bread and broke it. The silence was broken by a piercing cry, “It’s Clarence!” Aggie was on her feet, smiling. She came forward to the table. Clarence embraced her, joyfully, through tears.

During the Communion prayer, Clarence became aware that someone had opened the door behind him, and come in. The man sat down beside Aggie. He was familiar – it was Kenneth James, Mary’s boy!

The closing tape-recorded hymn was Thine be the glory, risen conquering son. Clarence sang it joyfully. He knew well that Aggie might be back to her old withdrawn self tomorrow, but her unexpected cry and her smile on this special day was enough.

Clarence McGonigall knew in his heart that he had been visited by angels, divine and human, in these past few days. He also understood full well that the Lord God was not inished with him yet. Christ was risen, he was risen indeed! And Squeegee? Where was she? Munching scones scrounged for her by residents. The limping gig had worked again. For her, all was well, and all manner of things would be well.

This article appears in the April 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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