Publish date: 23 March 2023
The following message has been written by Mike Deacon, Team Chaplain for Local Services.
Today, 23rd March, is the third UK National Day of Reflection, and has been championed by Marie Curie – the UK’s leading charity specialising in frontline nursing and hospice care.
As a West London NHS Chaplain, reflecting on this day takes me initially back to this day in 2021, when we marked one year since that first lockdown, and reflected on the tragedy of lives lost through Covid. Yet I remember as we gathered online that day, we did so with the hope of the vaccine, received by many of us just a few weeks before, and which eventually provided us a route out of the pandemic.
Today, a further two years on, I find myself taking a few moments to reflect once again. Not, thankfully, so much about the losses caused by Covid – although its effects will be long-lasting – but rather about all those I know who have died during these more recent months: I think of service-users and staff from across our Trust, and their loved ones, colleagues, friends and families who grieve their loss. And I think of the many more beyond these who are grieved, not known to me by name, but perhaps known to you.
I believe we discover ourselves more deeply, through our connecting with and relating to one another. And so as we are invited once again to pause at noon today, let’s think not only of those who have passed, those whose memories we treasure, but also of those immediately around us, that we might be prompted to reach out, connect and show how much we care, and value one another.
You can find out more about National Day of Reflection here.