L is for LESLIE

He lived in Canada for all of my life and I only saw him in the flesh three or four times. He was my mum's oldest brother and had gone to seek his fortune in a far away country, shortly before she married. Yet there was nothing prodigal about him, either in his outlook on life or the manner in which he lived, for he simply didn't see his working or leisure future around the picturesque Mall of Armagh and the surrounding countryside, still recovering from post Second World War syndrome. And while the timing of his departure was, in many ways, inappropriate, with the impending family wedding, there is never a right time to say goodbye and children never see such partings in the same light as their parents.

For years, he was the uncle I never knew, except in a handful of worn, black and white photographs that mum kept in an old album and a few large, glossy pictures, which I would see occasionally when I visited my grandmother, that portrayed him in action at his workplace. But his Christmas cards continued to arrive and were always signed, simply, Les, in his distinctively large and artistic script. Often, they contained a letter that would bring everyone up to speed on the details he wanted to tell and what he thought we needed to know. Then, one day, unexpectedly, news filtered through that he was coming home, albeit only for a brief holiday, to see his mum and dad for the first time in nearly twenty years. I wondered what he would be like, what stories he would tell and if I could communicate with someone over forty years my senior.

After his arrival celebration, with the fatted calf and all its trimmings, and when all the introductions and formalities had been completed, I got to know the real Leslie of the black and white celluloid stills and wasn't disappointed. All the good qualities that mum had remembered in him were still there and the years had simply accentuated his attributes. I was immediately attracted by his inviting, infectious smile, his relaxed attitude to all things and his concern to not be a burden on all around. I was transfixed by his stories of ice hockey games, his developed love of the Toronto Maple Leafs and all things Canadian, by his constant chewing of the red, cinnamon flavoured gum and by his willingness to always 'go with the flow'. We played football when he came to the country and he had lost none of the skill that had made him an ever-present in the Armagh Whites team and he introduced me to fishing, even buying me a rod and explaining the basics. Sadly I never pursued his promptings, though for a time after he left, I read avidly the ice hockey programmes and magazines that occasionally landed on our doorstep.

As the years passed, he returned several times to the homeland and when he eventually married across the ocean, we all knew that he would never return on a one way ticket. Sadly, illness was to rob us prematurely of a brother, uncle and friend but his legacy lives on in the person we knew and in the poems he wrote about home that reminded us all where a little corner of his heart had never left.

I don't know much about the childhood or teenage years of Jesus and I guess there were many days that weren't that exciting as he lived with his mum and dad, brothers and sisters in Nazareth. There is an opinion among Bible scholars that his dad may have died when he was relatively young and along with his appearance at the wedding in Cana, the site of his first miracle, suggests that he attended both weddings and funerals and experienced emotions of sadness and joy. It was only in his later years that I got to know Him and the picture that my Sunday School teachers, CE leaders, ministers and mum had painted had prepared me well, but when I met Him, I found so much more that he wanted to tell me and give me. And He says, 'I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' When you're with Jesus. you're never far from home.