Lockdown 19/28 – Read, Read, Read

Day 19 of my diary of a LOTR Fan Museum owner during our 4 week national lockdown - in NZ we’re uniting as a country to beat Covid-19 to break the chain and save lives, but …

The new job of STAY HOME, be kind, was all a bit overwhelming yesterday because of the nexus of Easter and cataclysm. I received messages of hope, and reminders that this will pass. Thank you for these messages, friends.

Reading may be great medicine in all this, and LOTR is up there of course. This morning I saw a post on a FB site dedicated to JRR that was very apt. From ROTK, there was a quote that bears repeating and considering in the current debate about “after” …

“`A great Shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell on his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.”

It’s not going to be easy to come through the current crisis. It won’t be smooth and there will be loss, grief and hardship. But the shadow will have passed, and I hope we can grieve cleanly and then laugh as we go forward. Best wishes, Kathy xx