Contents. Acknowledgments 11 Foreword 14 Introduction 16 Prologue 19

Transcription

1 Contents Acknowledgments 11 Foreword 14 Introduction 16 Prologue 19 1 London, Valentine s Day Fun and Family Life 33 3 Dark Days at Hammersmith 43 4 Treatment and Reprieve 53 5 Between a Rock and a Hard Place 64 6 Looking for a Miracle 74 7 Last Days 85 8 Will Our Anchor Hold? 95 9 Now What? Time Out in America Back Home A New World Opens Up Struggling to Have a Merry Christmas Healing and Romance in Bogotá Changing the Guard Double Weddings 179

2 17 Completing the Wedding Trilogy Two Babies and a President More Babies and a Global Family Epilogue 215 Free at Last by Carol Richards 221 Hope and a Future for you 222 About KCI 224

3 Foreword THIS BOOK FIRST ENTERED my consciousness during a winter afternoon walk around Windsor Great Park a day or two after Christmas I had just enjoyed a relaxed lunch with Wes and his extended family of children and grandchildren. Yet for all the joie de vivre in the home, I knew that Wes was still grieving for his beloved wife Carol, the maternal rock of their family, who had so sadly and prematurely died of cancer a few years earlier. As we strode across the landscape of the park, with Windsor Castle behind us in the distance, it was natural to talk about Carol. Wes described the human dramas she embodied those of love, laughter, courage, medical disappointment, suffering, acceptance, death and spiritual renewal within the family. There were as many mood changes in our conversation as there were scene changes on the walk. Inspiration must have been somewhere in the air, for eventually I said, You know, there s a book in this. But I ve never been an author, replied Wes. Will you help me write it? As it turned out, I did not write a single word of Hope and a Future. But I did spend a fair bit of time with my friend the novice author, commenting on, occasionally criticizing but most often praising his early drafts. As the manuscript took shape I became gripped by it. For this is a compelling narrative of raw human emotion. Although Carol s terminal illness is at its heart, 14

4 Foreword the humour and the happy family life are the limbs, perhaps even the wings, of the unfolding story. Transcending it all are the everlasting hands of God, guiding every step of the journey. I will not spoil the suspense by providing trailer-like glimpses of this powerfully moving and deeply spiritual saga. What I will highlight is the inspiration and encouragement this intensely personal account can give to anyone who has to pass through life s darker valleys of loss, pain and brokenness. Knowing these depths all too well myself, I recognize that Wes Richards has set down in these pages some memorable footprints. In the words of Henry Longfellow, may they be: Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o er life s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. 1 Jonathan Aitken Author and former British Cabinet minister 1 Henry Longfellow ( ). 15

5 Introduction EVERYBODY WANTS TO HOPE. But maybe you are one of the many people who are struggling to hope. Life has been just too bad or too sad for you to dare to dream that you could ever again have a hope-filled future. Hope, as President Obama expressed it, is an audacious concept. But how can you hope when you have had more than your share of bitter experiences? How can you hope when you have lost your loved ones? How can you hope when there is so much mess and carnage in the world? Hope, however, is a treasure worth guarding. Hope is powerful enough to triumph over great setbacks. History is full of examples of people and even nations who have continued to hope even when everything seemed hopeless. Sir Winston Churchill had it right when he defied the prospect of looming disaster to declare that Britain s darkest time would prove to be its finest hour. It takes faith and courage to hope for any kind of a future when life has hit you hard. I have witnessed many challenges to hope in over four decades as a journalist and as a pastor. Some time ago I conducted the funeral of a well-loved, apparently fit, twenty-eight-year-old young man from our church who died suddenly and unaccountably in his sleep, leaving a wife who was five months pregnant with their first child. Around that period I was introduced to a long-time and happily married couple and their four kids in their teens and 16

6 Introduction twenties. A few days later I was told that this close-knit family and many others in their home town had been shattered by the news that the father had been shot and killed when thieves broke into their holiday home. When darkness falls with such brutality and finality, hope seems forever lost. More times than I care to remember, I have sat and wept alongside people as they have battled to believe that the sun will ever shine again. I know how that feels, not only pastorally but also personally. On one beautiful English summer s afternoon, 29 June 2002, a very big light went out in my life when my darling wife and best friend for thirty-four years lost her fight with cancer. I was simply heartbroken. And so too were our three children and many family members and friends. My Christian faith reassured me that I was not without hope, even in the midst of great pain. But I had little idea how this could apply to us practically. Each of us knew that life would never be the same again. For all the well-meaning words of friends, it was crushingly obvious that our lives could not somehow be neatly put back together as if nothing had happened. From here on we were in uncharted territory and we were not at all sure that we had enough strength for the journey into the unknown. Yet what lay ahead was to confirm the gutsy old adage that It s always too soon to quit. More than that, what we were to discover brought into vivid focus the biblical promise that we had a hope and a future. These words were originally declared by the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah to a people who had been weighed down by years of misery. They needed some major convincing that there could be any good times ahead for them. 17

7 Hope and a Future Little by little we realized that this prospect of a positive future after a negative past was also relevant to us, as it is to all who know what it is to be caught up in dislocated circumstances beyond our control. If that includes you, then I hope this book will encourage and help you. I could never have foreseen how our story would unfold after so much sadness. When we were at our lowest moments we found that our story was not over. Far from it. Your story is not over either. 18

8 Prologue Cape Town International Airport, 15 November 2002 LOVE WAS UNMISTAKABLY in the air as we approached the arrivals hall early one sunny spring morning. Our host, Gert Erasmus, was waiting to welcome us on our first trip to South Africa. So too was his extremely pretty, tanned and casually dressed twenty-one-year-old daughter, Vasti. I greeted them warmly enough, as did my daughter Melody. But out of the corner of my eye I noticed that my second son James, aged twenty-two, was hugging Vasti for a number of seconds longer than protocol strictly demanded. Up till then they had only had a brief acquaintance. From that moment they were inseparable. After three days spent with families and friends, James came to me for a chat. Dad, I ve found my wife! he said, stating what was obvious to anybody who saw them. Just over a year later they were married in the cinematic surroundings of one of the Western Cape s oldest vineyards in the Stellenbosch wine lands. More than sixty friends joined us from the UK. It was such a perfect wedding that we all wanted to do it again. So we did just two days later. This time James and Vasti, briefly interrupting their honeymoon, were now in the roles of best man and bridesmaid. On this occasion the venue was another stunning vineyard 19

9 Hope and a Future just around the mountain and the couple getting married were James older brother Wesley and Vasti s older sister Wilana. Two years later the whole group of us from the UK were back once more at the southern tip of Africa for the beachside wedding of my darling daughter Melody to Drikus, the younger brother of Wilana and Vasti. They took their vows looking out to a becalmed sea on a hot and cloudless southern-hemisphere summer s day. That evening, after I had given my speech as father of the bride and as Melody s beloved chocolate fountain overflowed, I slipped out to a wooden viewing deck for a quiet moment. The moon had perfectly illuminated Table Mountain which towered above me. In the warm night breeze I reflected on the three marriages that even a fiction writer would hardly have dared to script. Above all, I thought of Carol. 20