We first visited Shooting Star Children’s Hospice on Good Friday last year, just after our baby daughter, Lydia, had been diagnosed with a life-limiting condition. Since then, we have stayed on a regular basis for respite care and, one day in the not too distant future, it may be the place where she dies, or at least where we will take her body in between her death and the funeral.

The hospice is an incredible place where the beauty of life and the reality of death exist side by side. Going there always feels both life-giving and daunting, as we watch and wait with our girl, not knowing how many days or weeks or months we may have left with her.

At the hospice, the miracle of life feels tangible. It’s a light and airy building, the colours seem brighter and the joy deeper. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that the preciousness of life is more striking in a context where its fragility is all too real. I am tossed around within this mystery every time I walk down the main corridor. Along this corridor you can find the main rooms of fun: the multi-sensory room with its lights and bubbles and ball pool, the arts and crafts room with all things creative, and the warm-as-a-bath hydrotherapy pool. In the midst of all this is the entrance to the ‘Tranquil Suite’ where families can stay with their children after they’ve died. Every time I walk past this door I wonder how long it will be before we’ll be going in there, how it will feel, what she will look like.

Some days I struggle to walk past this door, I want to go in and wreak havoc in a space which is meant to be tranquil, where the flowers are neatly tended, the cushions nicely plumped and the fine china cups and saucers await to comfort the next grief-stricken family. And I know I am not ready for what is to come.

On other days, I am glad to walk past this door, glad because it reminds me of the preciousness of today, because it puts things into perspective, draws me to slow down, to breathe more deeply, to marvel at living in the middle of this confusing dance between life and death.

So the door feels like a gift, a quiet but vital reminder of the reality of death in the midst of life, there to provoke the whole gamut of emotion which accompanies the journey of grief and from which we run at our peril.

A year on, another Good Friday, and we’re invited to sit again with Mary as she watches and waits through the torment of Jesus’ death and she’s left cradling her dead son in her arms. How did this embrace feels? And who was holding who? Often, when holding Lydia, I have a sense that while it’s me that physically holds her floppy and fitting body, it is really she who holds me, who is the strong one, who is walking on this journey with all the trust and faith which I lack, who wraps me in love and assures me that all will be well, and I aspire to be more like her. I wonder if it will still feel like that one day holding Lydia’s body in the tranquil suite? Today, as we take Jesus’ body down from the cross, and cradle him in our arms, I wonder if we might allow him to hold us, to comfort us, to be for us whatever we need him to be, even just for a moment, to be held....

And you held me – by Janet Morley

and you held me and there were no words
and there was no time and you held me
and there was only wanting and
being held and being filled with wanting
and I was nothing but letting go
and being held
and there were no words and there
needed to be no words
and there was no terror only stillness
and I was wanting nothing and
it was fullness and it was like aching for God
and it was touch and warmth and
darkness and no time and no words and we flowed
and I flowed and I was not empty
and I was given up to the dark and
in the darkness I was not lost
and the wanting was like fullness and I could
hardly hold it and I was held and
you were dark and warm and without time and
without words and you held me