Remembering Lidia

Since March 2012, each year, each February, a number of us remember more intensively our Lidia (born as Biljana, nickname Bilja) who peacefully crossed the doorstep of eternal life nine years ago.
It happened on the 29th February 2012, just 15 minutes before the midnight, just few months after her 32nd birthday , at her home in Kidderminster, UK, in her bed, with her beloved husband by her bedside. He was holding her delicate, soft and gentle hand and telling her lovingly and softly that she may go, that it is OK for her to leave.
Lidia’s beloved father was watching with tears in his eyes Lidia’s last moments in her long-suffering body with her husband on his knees by her bedside, with Lidia’s hand in his hand and feeling at the same time, his own and her husband’s love and pain.
Lidia’s mother was reading a traditional prayer for an easy departure of Lidia’s soul from her body from the Serbian Orthodox prayer book finally knowing and accepting that Lidia’s temporary life in this visible world is ending and that the new, temporary invisible, eternal life for Lidia is about to begin.
I am that fortunate, blessed and privileged, Lidia’s mother – Zorica who is nine years later sharing with you the memories of Lidia in this way.

The very moment when Lidia’s soul left her body, I heard clearly her cheerful, joyful, excited and loving voice, telling me:
“Mom, mom! This is so much more beautiful than anything that we could ever imagine!!”
Those were the last words I heard from my Lidia- Bilja and her first, and so far, the only, words for me from the other side. These words are engraved in my heart and are very often coming to my mind and my memories, making the strong connection with Lidia even stronger.
Praise and thanks to our most merciful and loving God for everything and for such an extraordinary, invaluable gift!!!
Since then I didn’t hear from Lidia so clearly, but she is always with me and from time to time she comes to my dreams, about which I might tell you some other time.
This is about that night of the 29th February 2012, about the 1st March 2012, about the 9th March 2012 and the last eight very special February memorials of Lidia at her grave.
The holy and mysterious peace and blessings entered Lidia’s home when Lidia’s soul and spirit left her body tortured by cancer for the last three years of her earthly life.
Without saying a word, for few moments Lidia’s husband, her father and I stood together in a “group hug” by Lidia’s bedside, united in our love for her, while intensively feeling the strength and the warmth of her love. She was gone, but at the same time she was with us in a very different way.
The strange and mysterious things started to happen that night and continued to happen to this day. They make the memories of Lidia so much more special, valuable, loving and joyful:
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Lidia’s face was tortured for a number of years with acne, but few days before the night of the 29th February 2012, they all disappeared. Her face, her skin miraculously became as clean as they were when she was new born baby!
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Her head on her pillow, her peaceful expression of a baby in sleep looked exactly as she looked when she was born.
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The swelling of her stomach and feet miraculously disappeared.
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The weather during Lidia’s last days in her body and during the few days after leaving her body was exceptionally different to “normal” for the time of the year. Not that it was not only cold and wintery like at all, it was very warm, pleasant and beautiful, as in the middle of spring, more like the best weather we experienced in May.
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The night when Lidia left her body totally strange, but wonderful and amazing thing happened which her husband, her father and I experienced and witnessed:
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From just before 2 am and until 4 am we heard beautiful choirs of so many birds singing continuously and beautifully. It was just us. There were no other people around. I heard the birds singing when the undertaker’s vehicle with Lidia’s body was leaving the drive of Lidia’s and Matthew's house. It was just me standing there and watching the departure of Lidia’s body from her loved and joyful home while the birds were singing and while it felt as a beautiful, peaceful and pleasantly warm summer night. Although nothing was normal at that moment, I felt as it was! I was on my own because Lidia’s husband and her father left home soon after the doctor’s visit and before the undertakers came. They walked to my home to stay for a while there with my husband and my younger daughter. Only when Lidia’s husband was telling me about the totally unusual choirs of singing birds that I realized how strange and amazing it was. It was one of the most beautiful, peaceful, blessed and holy nights in my life.



I remember thinking while I was standing on my own and watching undertakers vehicle leaving with Lidia’s body quietly, that it was just as Lidia would wish : without any drama, tears, pain, other people watching. But the singing birds at that time of the night and at that time of the year was not something that I heard of before or after that night. I think and believe that it was God’s special gift and comfort for our temporary parting. It was also for me an evidence that the Heaven was rejoicing in welcoming Lidia’s heavenly soul.
1st March 2012 was another beautiful, warm, sunny day which started with a blanket of fog which added to the special, very different, blessed day.
I wrote in my diary on that day:
“ God took my Bilja!
We prayed for health! … God gave her the perfect, everlasting health!
We prayed for life!..... God gave her eternal life in much better place with no pain, no sickness, but with everlasting joy and peace!”
“ The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away! Blessed be the name of our Lord!” (Job 1:21)
We, Serbian Orthodox Christians believe that the soul of the departed, who believed in our Lord, Jesus Christ, confessed their faith, did have communion and did their very best to do good during their life here are granted by God a gift of 3 days after the crossing the doorstep of eternal life, during which their soul may visit the places and the people specially dear and important to them, before their soul finally leaves this visible world.
Such three days that Lidia had: the 29th February, 1st March and 2nd March 2012 were extraordinary beautiful, sunny and warm days. Some of us experienced Lidia’s love, presence and visitation during these three days. More details and testimonies about this would take too much time and space and I will leave them for another occasion.
On the 3rd March 2012, the first Saturday after Lidia’s death we arranged the traditional first memorial prayers in Lazarica Church in Birmingham. The day started with light rain and clouds, but after the service it was sunny and beautiful again.
On the 4th March 2012 the winter returned. It was very cold. We even had some snow. Lidia was elsewhere, but her love and memories of her remained with us.
The 9th March 2012: the day of the funeral. I was amazed by the number of people waiting for Lidia’s body to come to Lazarica Church and to attend the funeral. I am most grateful to all of them. I didn’t know how many hearts Lidia touched and how many people were there to support her husband in his most difficult times. There were much less people on their wedding day in the same Church. That was a very happy occasion, but this one was very sad and most difficult for many.
But we were all united in the prayers and love for Lidia and her husband.
All present there were touched with the beauty of the Orthodox Serbian service and agreed in their hearts with the priest who said that we will always REMEMBER LIDIA’S SMILE!!! It was loving, warm and genuine.
We didn’t think of it or prepared the eulogy for Lidia’s funeral, or saying anything at the occasion, but the parish priest, who wedded Lidia and Matthew only few years before, and who knew Lidia in her healthy and happy days as well as in her day burdened with the pain and a deadly illness, felt that he had to say something about Lidia.
He did say the main thing that describes Lidia : the wide and warm smile in good and in bad times. The pain and suffering didn’t change her smile at all with which she always greeted others.
After the prayers and the part of the funeral in the Church and after the burial at the Cemetery, which is actually a part of a beautiful Park, a big number of us were guests at Lidia’s parents in law home. Lovely and most kind people who together with the rest of their family accepted and loved Lidia as their own daughter, niece, cousin and sister. In a way they all “adopted” Lidia. My family and I also created very strong bonds with them. We shared a lot of good and joyful times , but also some very difficult and sad ones. We did and we still do feel as a part of that very close and loving family.
Lidia’s husband prepared a number of framed Lidia’s happy photos and placed them around his parent’s home. Their crowded house was a blessed and in a way very joyful place in which all those who loved Lidia and her husband were together, as a big, loving family, celebrating love and life, while not feeling at all that Lidia was not there.
Since then, in last eight years, Lidia’s and her husband’s closest and most loyal friends and family members joined the traditional yearly memorial at Lidia’s grave, held on the last Saturday in February. Serbian Orthodox Priest’s memorial prayers, traditional refreshments at the grave and the time spent in a nearby pub after the service at the grave brought us together every year and filled our hearts with the same, loving and warm feelings for our Lidia, her dear husband and for each other. The cold, freezing temperatures, the cold and strong winds, the rain and other challenging conditions didn’t stop us to do the same each year, to remember Lidia together, for the last eight years.

At the end of each memorial, we would all go back to our homes, feeling blessed, with warm feelings for each other, wrapped up warm in God’s and Lidia’s love.

Last year, eight years after the 29th February 2012… on the 29th February 2020 Lidia’s father, sister and uncle came from Serbia to join the memorial and to stay with us for few days.
The last year’s Lidia’s memorial was the most valuable and unique day for me because besides the joy of seeing all familiar, loving and smiling faces, I had an opportunity, for the very first time, to speak with some of Lidia’s closest friends and learn the lovely things about my Lidia which I didn’t know.
I got to know better some of the lovely people with whom Lidia shared some most valuable life situations and moments.
I didn’t cry when Lidia passed away, or at her funeral, or her previous memorials, not because I was strong and able to control my emotions and tears, but because there were no tears, no pain. I always felt, as I still feel that Lidia is always in my ”little pocket”, in my heart, all the time, with her loving and supporting smile. But I did cry on the 29th February 2020 while listening the heart warming stories from her closest friends about the love and understanding between them. These tears were not the tears of sadness and pain. They were the tears caused by so much love, warmth and true friendship.
This year, nine years after Lidia’s departure, her memorial was different because of the pandemic restrictions. On Friday 26th February 2021, on the anniversary of Lidia's last communion, there was the traditional memorial at her grave with our priest and only three of us attending.
On Saturday 27th February 2021 after the holy liturgy in Lazarcia Church, with all the restrictive measures there was a memorial in church. We wanted to have a livestream of the memorial service for those who wanted but couldn't attend but as our first attempt wasn't good enough or reliable, we abandoned that idea. We are sorry for that and we hope that next year we can all be together again.
But I hope and believe that we will remember Lidia, previous memorials, her life, her love, her smile and be together again in the same, loving spirit.
I hope that the last year’s memorial, which were so special and memorable that will help us all feel as close as before, whether we could actually be together or not.
For the end of this occasion to remember Lidia in the Spirit and in our hearts, I will leave you with Lidia’s words of wisdom which God gave her to give to one of her beloved best friend and which her friend gave to me on the 29th February 2020:
“God never allows more for us to bear than what we can take!”
May God bless you all who remember Lidia’s love and smile and give you all His grace, love, peace, health, protection and abundance of His very best!
With love and gratitude
Lidia’s mom
A message from a friend...

