A Life well Lived

In the early hours of this morning we received news that my brave sister Anna finally lost her fight with pancreatic cancer.  Her last week was spent in Accord Hospice, Paisley after she took ill at my parents in Glasgow.  Anna has gone to her eternal rest and her body is no longer racked with pain.  We rejoice that Anna is now gazing on the Saviour she followed so faithfully but our hearts are still broken.  Grief has many stages but currently we are numb with pain.  We are no strangers to death as a family but experience doesn't make the pain any less.  A bright light has gone out in our lives and for now, it feels very dark.

From learning of her diagnosis in February 2018, Anna has borne this cruel disease with quiet dignity and without complaint.  Anna hated hospitals, procedures and treatment right to the very end.  They interfered with her frenetic lifestyle.  One of her great hallmarks was her service to others and she hated being the centre of attention.  Anyone who enquired about her illness found discussions to be brief and business like.  During our first meeting with the consultant in March 2018, Anna was given months to live but due to her fitness, resilience, stubbornness and cheerfulness she exceeded all expectation.  She was brave and devoid of self pity to the end.

Some people live long, self centred and empty lives.  Others, like Anna, live short selfless lives filled with service to others.  Two years of pancreatic cancer did little to curtail her energy for life.  She worked almost full time until the day she was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow on 5th October 2019.  One of her colleagues has since told me that she contacted him on her last Friday at work (4th October) to ask if he could complete a 50 page report that she hadn't quite finished!  In typical Anna fashion she was through in Glasgow for a dog show but became increasingly unwell.  Fluid retention in her last two months had become almost unbearable.  

Anna was born in London in April 1968, the middle of three children. Our family moved north to Edinburgh in 1973 and Anna started her schooling at Currie and then Juniper Green Primary School.  Living in Baberton I remember wandering around the Utopian new housing estate called Wester Hailes hand in hand with my big sisters.  They introduced me to the joy of chips from the chippy and I have never looked back.  They were happy, innocent days.

In 1978 our family moved to Oban after my father accepted the call to Oban Free 'High' Church.  As well as being a popular tourist destination, the manse was a haven for stranded missionaries from Mull and Coll as well as a merry go round of the great and the good of the reformed world.  Life was never dull and my sisters and I were frequently pressed in to service.  The manse felt like a model of community and hospitality and Anna went on to model that throughout her life.  Her annual 'Burns Nights' were legendary for tsunami levels of haggis, neeps and tatties and some very ropey singing.  I suspect many a bemused foreign student from Holyrood Evangelical Church had their first taste of Scottish culture on these infamous evenings.

Our lives were shattered in December 1980 with the death of our dear sister Lynda from a brain tumour.  Anna and Lynda were just a year apart in age and shared a room so the impact on Anna must have been unimaginable.  The trauma of a 13 year old's coffin and grave never leave you, and it shaped Anna for the rest of her life.

Unlike her wee brother, Anna excelled at school - Rockfield Primary School and then Oban High School.  After glandular fever set her back a few months in fourth year, she more than made up for lost time. She studied hard, was popular, played a lot of netball, became a prefect and eventually 'head girl'.  She always loved animals and was walker in chief for our west highland terrier Candy.  She seemed destined for a career as a vet.  Anna's idea of a good Easter was lambing in a cold shed in Easter Ross surrounded by hay and afterbirth.  Perhaps not surprisingly she chose to apply for a BSc in Agricultural Science at Aberdeen University in 1986.  Anna threw herself in to student life and played a full part in Bon Accord Free Church and the FCYA.

After university Anna started a PhD at the Bush Estate in Edinburgh but moved back to Aberdeen to work at the Macaulay Institute.  During this time Anna and I shared a flat and I vividly remember her talking to me about her PhD and whether she should continue with it.  Anna was supremely practical and a life of academia did not suit her personality.  She switched to an MPhil which she passed with ease.  The subject matter remains unfathomable to the family but we are extremely proud of her academic achievements.

After a few years with the Macaulay Institute Anna moved to Wye in Kent in 1995 with her beloved dog Jet. She relished rural Kent and linked up with many family contacts from London years.  After a stint with the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories working on Scrapie eradication in sheep, Anna moved back to Scotland in 2001 to work with the Scottish Government during the foot and mouth outbreak.  This was to be Anna's place of work over the next 18 years.  She held three different posts; Scrapie and BSE eradication in sheep, Rural Development (LEADER and Scottish National Rural Network) and latterly she worked on Agricultural Development (new entrants to farming, innovation, skills and knowledge transfer of farmers).

During this last post Anna led a small but dedicated team.  One of Anna's most painful struggles after our last consultants meeting on the 20th September was how to break the news to her team that she was too ill to work.  It seems incredible that despite being discharged from all treatment and receiving a palliative package of care Anna continued to work for another two weeks until 4th October.  In many ways her job personified her passion - the outdoors, Scotland, leadership, animals and rural communities.  She will leave a big gap in the Scottish Government.  Her colleagues have been incredibly supportive to us as a family with lots of texts and emails in Anna's last few days.

Anna loved the outdoors and in the course of many years of hill walking tackled over 100 of Scotland's Munros.  Most weekends, when many of us were thinking of a slow start to our Saturdays, Anna would be gathering her faithful group known as the 'Holyrood Hillwalkers' and setting out for some new destination.  While the hill was important, it always seemed that the coffee shop was equally, if not even more important.  Without fail there would be a Saturday evening Facebook picture posted of bacon rolls, coffee and scones in some rural location with a group of weary walkers still suffering from one of Anna's 'gentle strolls'.  Over the years the hill walks were a haven for many a lonely student or newcomer to Edinburgh and as always Anna gave of herself freely and without reserve.  Anna loved nothing more than finding a beautiful cottage in the Highlands and heading away with 'the girls' for week of walking and good food.  She quite simply loved life and lived it to the full.

Anna loved being around children.  She dotted on her 5 nephews and was forever trying to drag them out of bed on a Saturday morning to go on an adventure.  Anna was always wanting to buy the boys exactly what they wanted for birthday and Christmas and the emails for an Amazon link would be sent out weeks in advance.  No expense was spared on the boys and they were showered with gifts.  Due to their own fathers dislike of the outdoors Anna took the oldest boys for their first camping trip.  With Anna's usual zeal they were introduced to all the joys of the outdoors and have never forgotten the 'compostable toilet'.  Calum became Anna's regular sidekick in dog agility shows and both Calum and Davie attended dog shows regularly.  One of Calum's great highlights was attending Crufts with Anna in 2017.  Anna was immense fun to be around and the boys used to love when  we were invited for Sunday lunch at Anna's, followed by the usual Sunday afternoon walk which always seemed to be via the local school long jump.  The boys invariably came back covered in sand but always hail and hearty.

As a Christian, Anna had a quiet but strong faith.  She professed faith in Christ in her mid teens after wrestling with assurance for several years.  Unlike her slightly cocky brother, Anna was always cautious and liked to think things through.  She disliked hypocrisy, insincerity and clericalism.  Her faith was robust, deep rooted and supremely practical.  The word 'authentic' is over used today but it is a word that epitomises Anna and her Christian faith.  She was a voracious reader of Christian books and a deep thinker. Anna found a spiritual home in Holyrood Evangelical Church in Leith, Edinburgh.  For many years she enjoyed the clear, warm and practical teaching of Rev Phil Hair (now retired).  When Anna was diagnosed with cancer in February 2018 the church not only embraced Anna, but the whole family.  Their kindness to us as a family will not be forgotten and we can't thank them enough for the way they loved Anna through such a difficult time.  Anna continued to attend the morning service until 29th September 2019 and even listened to sermons in hospital to keep up to date. The congregation understood Anna well. They didn't fuss over her, they didn't interfere but their love was very evident in so many little acts of kindness.  Thank you Holyrood Evangelical Church - you held us up when we would have fallen down.  If the mark of a Christian church is ultimately love, Holyrood passes with flying colours.

Anna loved all animals both small and large.  As soon as she left university Anna was never without a dog and latterly with two.  Her brother remains hopelessly allergic to animals and would have to swig a bottle of anti-histamine before even a quick visit to Currievale Park Grove.  These beloved four footed creatures would hang on Anna's every word and travelled everywhere with her. Thousands of pictures were taken with Candy, Bobby, Jet, Cullin, Shadow and Storm perched on precarious rocks, skulking in deep foliage or posing with various children.  In the last few years Anna became passionate about dog agility and was a loyal member of Exel Dog Agility in West Calder.  Saturdays were taken up with dog shows all over Scotland and Shadow and Storm's rosettes cover whole walls of Anna's house.  Anna found friendship and community in the agility world and she (and the dogs) will be greatly missed.  Her nephew Calum hopes to follow in his auntie's footsteps.

My sister was generous, hospitable, loyal, trustworthy, genuine and absolutely bursting with life.  Even when others let her down she was quick to forgive. In her 51 years she was a shining example of a life well lived.  She embodied the verse in John 10 v 10 'I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.'  Anna embodied the Christian life.  She loved creation, she loved people,  she practised hospitality, she loved her church family and she lived out her faith in an authentic and practical way.

Anna leaves behind a brokenhearted family but we are thankful that we do not rejoice as those without hope.  The night Anna was admitted to hospital (Saturday 5th Oct) we both knew things were serious. I read to her from Psalm 89 before attempting to pray.  Some of you will be more familiar with the metrical version:

O greatly blessed the people are

the joyful sound that know;

In brightness of thy face, O Lord,

they ever on shall go.

They in thy name shall all the day

rejoice exceedingly;

And in thy righteousness shall they 

exalted be on high.

On Tuesday night, after a marked decline over 2-3 days, I read from 2 Corinthians 4 v 16 - 18: 'Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day.  For our momentary affliction is producing for us an abundantly, incomparable eternal weight of glory.  So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.' The weight of the words hung in the air as the words came alive to both of us.  Anna was fading fast but she was drifting closer to her eternal home.

After a painful, at times chaotic and uncomfortable week in the Queen Elizabeth, Anna was moved to the Accord Hospice in Paisley on Friday 11th October.  The care and love Anna received from the moment she was admitted was overwhelming.  During her final weekend my Mum, Dad and I were able to cry and worship together with Anna.  I continued to read 'New Morning Mercies' to Anna as she had done for the last few months.  All the while her two beloved dogs stood as sentinels on either side of the bed.  She had a door in her room that opened outside and the dogs were able to come and go quite freely.  We will be forever thankful for the love and dignity that the Accord staff showed my sister in her final days on earth.  We will never be able to find the words to thank them enough for the way they carried us as a family when wave after wave of grief hit us during Anna's stay.  The work of hospices is truly humbling and in desperate need of wider support.

Can there be rejoicing in death?  We believe so.  Anna leaves a gaping hole in our lives but she is in a much better place.  Her body is no longer twisted and emaciated with cancer. As the shorter catechism reminds us 'what benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?'  Answer: 'The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass in to glory, and their bodies, still being united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.'

For now we have a temporary separation with Anna and Lynda but we look forward to that day when we will be reunited in a place without sin and illness.  On the Wednesday before Anna died, when we were in a very low place as a family, a letter arrived for my father from an old friend.  His words struck a chord with all of us as he spoke of Christ: 'Today you may be walking in darkness without light, but he is still there and, though you can't see him, he never takes his eyes of you; and though you may find it hard today to understand how anyone can laugh, or even smile, one day the Lord will wipe away your tears, put the joy back in your heart, and make you once again, what you have been to others.'  That day feels like a long way off but we trust in the one who does all things well.

Where can we go for our comfort and consolation at this time?  And who can comfort us in our deep distress?  Well surely it must be 'the father of mercies, the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we are comforted ourselves' (2 Cor 1 v 3-4). We trust in a God who walked this earth and knows what it is to suffer loss, feel desolation and who knew what it was to be lonely.  This the God and Saviour who Anna put her trust in and she is with him now.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

In memory of Anna Murray 16th April 1968 - 20th October 2019.