Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Sara, ( my daughter-in-
law) happy birthday Father Peter!!
I should perhaps point out there is a slight age difference between the two, although I
hope that they are both able to celebrate a little with some birthday cake and a glass of
cheer!
We also heard last week of two other people who shared a birthday, on 29th March, Bob
Weighton and Joan Hocquard were both 112 years old!
They both lived through the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic of 1918 which, world wide, was
believed to have claimed between 50 to 100 million lives, more than those lost in the
two World Wars, and believed to have been spread by those soldiers returning from the
First World War. We may all hope and pray that the present coronavirus does not reach
those proportions!
Thinking of birthdays I was reminded of a lovely lady that we used to know in Dorset,
the mother-in-law of one of my fellow Readers. Dorothy was born on Christmas Day
and actually died on Good Friday, well into her nineties. She was a very religious
person, with a good sense of humour, and always compared our time here on earth as
books which had been ‘lent out’ from God’s own Library, some for a long period and
others for shorter times, but all in the end would be returned to God’s loving care.
In these present times it is good to take comfort in our faith and the knowledge that we
never ‘walk alone’, wherever or however we may be, and that as our Lord promised,
each and everyone of us will in the end, have a place in his eternal Kingdom.
Amen.
Michael Tonkin
1 st April 2020
Reflections for 1st April – Peter’s 60th Birthday!
