Life ends, but love doesn't

My health has been great this year — good, sustained energy.

Better eating has meant no more snoring, diminishing stomach and sustained energy for family and work! As a 45-year-old male, all hopeful signs!

It is the first year in five that I have not had major surgery or a procedure of some type, related to melanoma cancer.

Amid this joy, my tennis team “The Stooges” brought home a grand final win, the garden reaped heaps of lettuce, tomatoes, beans, capsicums and we grew our own pineapple.

Nature has been abundant.

It was a year I also was published. I wrote about surviving cancer.

This year was dominated, though, by something, four of them: family funerals.

Firstly, my father Brian passed away. A trip to Melbourne for preparations and the funeral.

It was expected. Dad had cancer for five years. The last year being a real struggle for him and mum.

September, my uncle died. I flew to Brisbane to say farewell.

October. Dave, my brother, died suddenly. He had an aneurism at the base of his brain that burst, killing him instantly.

There were no warning signs at all.

I flew to Perth for the preparations and funeral, in what were very shocking circumstances.

The tragedy was tempered by being with his family and a large mob of his friends and a big party to farewell him.

Dave would have enjoyed the wake with all his mates, I thought as I looked around the room. “Dave’s drinks”, as his daughter Tara called the wake, was quite a do — we sent him off well.

The family and I then went camping on Magnetic Island for ten days.

The long, warm, slow days were a great rest and restorer for us all in what had been quite a year. We spent a lot of time swimming, hammocking, enjoying the birds and animals in the campsite, talking, camp cooking.

Simple living and nature refreshed us.

Then number four.

In Shepparton for Christmas, my wife’s Mum passed away.

She’d been living with a blood disorder for four years and it finally depleted her body. She went down really quickly and, fortunately, we were all there together with each other.

Life ends but love doesn’t. That’s my reflection after this year.

We belong because of love. I am not independent of others and I only really know myself through others.

For me, that is why losing family is hard.

That is why losing faith is currently easy.

I know myself through them.

Walking on the beach last week, my thoughts anticipated Easter. I imagined God, having sent his only son to a painful death and then put in a grave.

Jesus’ life ended, but love didn’t … his story goes on.

Equally, in living our Christian faith, we belong to each other because of love. I am not independent of others and I only really know myself and faith calling through others.

Love: my link to each of those whose lives have ended. Memory. History. Joy. Pain. All that they made me feel, as a brother, son, son in law, nephew … is love manifest.

Equally my link to those in our family, neighbours, community and society; memory, history, joy, pain. As a person of faith, all I have felt as a Christian person … is love manifest.

Love lives on. Jesus lives on.

To be renewed and refreshed we’ll be camping again this Easter.

Andy King and family live in Townsville, where he is a community worker, a role he’s lived since 1989. He keeps life in balance through veggie gardening, tennis, writing and beach walking. At 19, Andy came to Christ through Uniting Church youth outreach in Glen Waverley, Victoria, where he grew up. Inspired by Jesus’ life and teaching, Andy has sought to live a faithful life earthed in being with the least, last, lost and left-out people in our midst.