Peter's Passing

When I first wrote this article, Peter Rowe had died a few weeks previously.  Once I'd written about this, I felt that some kind of pressure had been relieved.  I couldn’t share this news with my son – it would mean nothing to Mike because he grew up in the village where we lived as a family: his mother, sister and I.  Peter, on the other hand, had lived, for more than fifty years by my certain knowledge, in the town where I was born.  I couldn’t tell my cousin either, because it was she who had told me, having seen the ‘Family Notice’ in the local paper.  I suppose this is something I shall have to get used to as I get older – the deaths of people whom I remember, but who mean nothing to those who are around me now.

So who was Peter?  I first encountered him during my early years when he was a local collector for the National Deposit Friendly Society.  It was he who called once a month to collect the 5/- or whatever subscription my mother paid into her account ‘for a rainy day’.  I believe he was a toolmaker or machinist by trade, working for a firm of agricultural engineers in the town.  Certainly his neat appearance and precise manner of conversation were in keeping with the precision of such an occupation.  Many years later, when a time of spiritual searching led me to the Quakers, I met Peter again, for he was an Elder of the local Meeting.  His quiet, efficient manner at that time aligned in my mind with the engineering precision I remembered from childhood.  I learned that he had died in a nearby nursing home at the age of 92, a widower, and much loved by his sons and their wives, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

And why should I tell the the readers of my article, and now of this blog – a virtual, and world-wide community amongst whom it's almost certain that no one will have any connection to these events – about his death?  It was, after all, just one more of so many such statistics in any month. No reason at all ... apart, that is, from the fact that I wanted to share my treasured memories of such an unobtrusive and somehow overtly holy man, and the news of his passing.  As I mused on this desire to tell someone about Peter, and his devoted and equally quiet wife, Muriel, it occurred to me that One who would love to hear my recollections is God Himself.  He loves us to talk to Him, to share with Him all that is going on in our lives.  Each of us is precious to Him, and every little bit of all of our lives is important to Him.  As an indication of how fine is the detail of His care, Jesus told us, “even the hairs on your head are numbered” (Luke 12:7).

So Peter is dead.  Long may he live in the presence of the Lord Jesus.