My brother Julian, is a prolific reader. Far more than I. My concentration span is not as long as his. I read the Bible through each year, so I can safely say I read 66 books a year. Julian reads multiple books at a time and he’s always telling me about them. He always makes them sound fascinating and when I express an interest, he passes them onto me. I don’t like negative books though, so when he read one about a boy who died from leukaemia, I did not feel I wanted to read it. He told me how inspirational it was, so I said I would take a look. When he gave it to me, I was horrified at the cover. The eyes of this young, handsome man looked back at me.
He was the one who died. Internally, I retracted. Like a stab in my heart. With every ounce of my being I did not want to read this book which so clearly would inflict enormous heartache. It sat on my desk. I kept seeing William. I decided to tell Julian I couldn’t read this book. My maternal heart forbade it. As I took it off my desk and went to put it out of sight, I flipped it open and on page 137, I read these words:
Tuesday, October 19th
“The most important thing to remember every morning as I set out to write this Journal is that it is dedicated and written for God; every word is written for him to do with what he likes.”
That on its own got my attention. And so I changed my mind. I opened the book back to the beginning. The first chapter is entitled “A time to die”. William’s mother writes:
“I was alone in the centre aisle of St. Peter’s, Sandwich. We had come off the beach and I had gone in to look round while the others were shopping. It was very quiet; a seldom-used church, shortly to be closed; but it was there that God told me how long my seventeen year old son William was going to live.
For six months we had known he was suffering from leukaemia. Doctors had given various opinions on his expectation of life, ranging from weeks to years. That very morning our family doctor had warned me to be prepared for his final illness to start at any time. Watching his affectionate horseplay with our other children on the beach that afternoon, the familiar knife had turned in my heart as I wondered how long all those young lives were to be unclouded.
I stood there desperately praying, agonised at the uncertainty. With the whole strength of my being I implored to know more. I implored that God would overcome the communication gap and give me a time span to live with. In the instant there seemed to be agreement: if I happened to be standing on a memorial stone I could read that as a sign. I looked slowly down to a 19th century inscription at my feet. It commemorated a young man aged 20 and a few weeks. The experience was so vivid I never forgot what I had learned. When William reached his twentieth birthday, three years later, and started the week so his final illness, I sometimes wished I could go back to Sandwich and see how long there was to go, but I couldn’t leave him. It was six months after his death before I steeled myself to go back and have another look to see if the inscription had been exact to the very week. We searched the centre aisle, and then the whole floor, but there was no stone.”
Very heavy stuff. But God is there during the very heavy times. William died on 26th November 1971. The book was written in 1983. A portion of the book is William’s mother’s account of his illness and the rest is his journal, written up to the day before he died. The book is dedicated to him along with these Bible verses:
Psalm 84:5-6
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee: in whose heart are thy ways. Who going through the vale of misery use it for a well: and the pools are filled with water.
I am sure you are now saddened and a little depressed. It sounds a miserable book, but we need to remember that on the very contrary to how we feel, William is very much alive and well. He is in heaven enjoying a timeless eternal life of joy and peace.
I will get beyond page two and read the book from cover to cover. I’m sure William would marvel that his writing is being read 45 years after his death!
These are the days!
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂