Ian C.

A few years ago I went to a World Convention for recovering alcoholics in Minneapolis in America. On the Saturday night, instead of going to the Edgar-Hoover Convention Centre with the other seventy thousand or so recovering alcoholics, I went to the Catholic Cathedral with my friend Stuart. The priest was talking about the woman in the Bible who was haemorrhaging and who touched the mantle of Jesus Christ in the sure knowledge that she’d be cured. Christ felt the power flow out of him if you remember - and, from amongst the throngs of people surrounding him, He turned and asked, “Who touched me? Who touched me? Who touched me?” And the priest compared that woman’s faith to the faith of the alcoholic. He said this, “We in the church believe God exists. Alcoholics, and there are seventy thousand of them in Minneapolis this weekend, they know He exists!”

One such person who knew God existed was Ian C – a stalwart of the recovery meetings in Cardiff. I went to see him a few months ago in hospital on a Sunday afternoon – he looked emaciated. The cancer had certainly got hold of him. He asked me how I was, and then he asked me about my family. He always did that. Ian C was always more concerned about the other person rather than himself. And then he talked about his “only concern in life” – which was to try and stop his sister from travelling all the way from America to visit him. “It’s far too long a journey for her to undertake, Wynford”, he said. “I’ll be alright, and she knows that.”

And then he started talked about his father who had died the previous year in his late eighties. Indeed, all Ian’s uncles, were in their late eighties, as well – one, even reaching the ripe old age of ninety two, I think he said. And Ian had got to thinking, “Maybe I’ve got an extra thirty years or so of life ahead of me too! I’d even started planning what I was going to do with those extra thirty years,” he laughed. “Never assume anything in life Wynford”, he said – “learn that lesson. Never take anything for granted.” and he patted respectfully his stomach where the cancer lay.

I then asked him if he felt cheated out of those extra thirty years of life, because of the cancer. “Not at all”, he said, “not at all. I’ve already had twenty five extra years of life through this recovery programme, Wynford”, he said. “Twenty five extra years of sober living which have been beyond my wildest dreams, and which I would never have had if it weren’t for this wonderful programme of ours.”

A consummate chess player, Ian had played and won at the game of life, as well. The cancer had no power over him – none whatsoever; and neither did death – which was so obviously his next and final challenge. Death, as Dylan Thomas said, had no dominion over Ian - none whatsoever.

I’d brought him a present that day to make him feel better. However, I was the one who was feeling better by the time I left. I was the one who’d been given the present as well – a gift to me from Ian.

The following week my wife and I went to Prague – courtesy of my God-given recovery from alcoholism. I wouldn’t have had a marriage if it weren’t for that recovery! We went to concerts and listened to music by Mozart, Grug and Stravinski. And then the following week we went to a time-share we have in St David’s in Pembrokeshire with our two little grandchildren – again, courtesy of my ongoing recovery. They wouldn’t be able to say ‘We’ve never seen Taid drink’, if it weren’t for that ongoing miraculous recovery. We visited the Dinosaurs that week in Tenby, and went to the sea-side and we laughed, and laughed, and laughed and we had so much fun. And then on Good Friday we went to a family service in St David’s Cathedral. And after the service, the Bishop came past in a grand procession – and he stopped, made the sign of the cross towards us - and blessed us as a family. And I thought to myself, little does he know how blessed we already are. …. And that’s when Ian’s face came into my mind. He was smiling – and there was a special aura about him – an aura of perfect peace and tranquillity. And then his face vanished as quickly as it had appeared. I resolved, there and then, to visit him on my return - for I knew he’d been moved to a hospice in Penarth – Stuart, in fact, had told me so.

On bank holiday Monday, we went for a picnic to Cosmeston Lakes, and on the way home I called at the hospice to visit Ian. The receptionist, rather ominously, couldn’t find his name on the list of patients, so she took me to see the Staff Nurse, who led me into a small ante-room at the back, and sat me down. “I’m afraid to have to tell you that your friend died on Good Friday”, she said.

I think she was expecting me to be sad. I wasn’t. On the contrary, I felt overjoyed for Ian – for him to be at one, at last, with his God who meant so much to him. And I felt privileged to have known him – because he was one of those alcoholics who knew that God existed. He had also, I knew, touched the mantle of Jesus Christ. And Christ, feeling the power flow out of Him, had turned, and from amongst the throngs of people surrounding him, had asked, “Who touched me? Who touched me? Who touched me?”

Ian C touched you Lord. And because of that he touched me and the lives of countless other people inside and outside the recovery movement. He was a man blessed with extraordinary humility. And he carried the message of recovery and hope right up to, and beyond the grave.

I had to ask the Nurse one final question. “Did his sister eventually arrive from America?”
“Yes” she said “she arrived an hour before he died. It was as if he was hanging on - waiting to say his final farewell.”
“And was he able to say anything to her?”
“He mumbled something about, “You shouldn’t have come - I’m going to be alright.”

Oh, and the present he gave me that Sunday afternoon in the hospital ward in Cardiff? It was this poem – something he’s come across in one of his readings – and something he wanted me to have. With your permission, I’ll share it with you. It’s a poem by Kara di Giovanne.

COMES THE DAWN by Kara di Giovanne

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a heart and chaining a soul;
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security;
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises.
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head held up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman not the grief of a child;
And you learn to build all your roads on today -
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans,
And futures have a way of falling down mid-flight.

And after a while you learn that even sunshine
Burns if you get too much;
So you plant your own garden and decorate
Your own soul, instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong…
That you really have worth…
And you learn and learn…
With each goodbye you learn…...