The Green Cloth

We believe in The Holy Spirit who is the ‘invisible go-between’ connecting us with God and other people, and making us aware of their needs.                                                  

                                                                                 (St Aidan’s Church, Bamburgh)

The Green Cloth

One gloomy winter afternoon I was due to deliver the church magazine to Mary, a widow in her late seventies.  However, as I had to walk a friend’s dog before darkness fell, I phoned Mary to tell her to expect me a little later than usual.  This she seemed to accept in her normal cheerful way, so I was surprised and concerned when, on my arrival at about half-past four, she said reproachfully, “I was beginning to think you were never coming.”

Looking tearful and exhausted, she led me to her small back room where a coal fire was giving out welcome glowing heat.  “It’s been a bad day,” she sighed, sinking despondently into her armchair. “Last night my best friend Ella passed away.  We’ve been friends since we were in our teens. I was her bridesmaid. Oh, how I’m going to miss her!”

With tears in her eyes she told me the details of Ella’s last illness, and how she and Ella’s husband had stayed with her until the end.

As I listened to this outpouring of sorrow from Ella’s small, lonely, desolate friend, a sudden wave of compassion swept over me- and simultaneously I had a vision of a roll of bright green cloth.

  It was so bright, and somehow insistent, that I gasped and blurted out, “Mary, I don’t know why, but in my mind’s eye I’m seeing the colour green, so vivid that I feel that I just have to tell you about it.”

Astonished, Mary wiped her eyes and sat bolt upright.  “Green!” she exclaimed.  “That was Ella’s favourite colour – so much so that it was a joke between us.  We used to go to Glasgow to shop for clothes.  Her husband would always say, “For goodness sake, get a different colour this time.  I’m fed up seeing you in green!”   But Ella could never resist something green, so when she arrived home he would groan, “Oh, not green again!”

By now Mary had managed a faint smile as she continued to reminisce fondly about the shopping expeditions she and Ella had gone on together, and somehow the atmosphere had changed in that little room.

Where had that consoling vision come from?  I don’t know, but am only grateful that I was able to be instrumental in bringing Mary a tiny degree of comfort in her grief.