Contemplative Inquiry

In the picture above, my wife Elaine sits at ease on a softly majestic chair. The occasion is the opening of a new University of Gloucestershire building refashioned from an empty Debenham’s department store. Primarily it is for the university’s faculties of education, psychology and social work.

It is also for the local community. The city’s public library is being amalgamated with the campus one. This will be on the bottom floor together with shared study spaces and meeting rooms.

Elaine has chosen one of the plusher available chairs to begin her ownership of a space that is likely to become important in our lives. I see her as showing that she is back in the world, 16 months after her accident in Gran Canaria and all the related health problems that manifested as a result of it.

The picture below is from early October last year, 6 months after the accident. Elaine is in transition from wheelchair to rollater, at least in our immediate neighbourhood. Being outdoors at all under her own steam is new. To me she looks tentative and inward. Looking at the picture now, Elaine says she looks marked by suffering. It is certainly a very different picture from the one at the top.

The two pictures together show healing in later life to be a long process making serious demands on the person who is healing. It is a joy for me to see Elaine’s transformation.