When People Hurt at Christmas
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| Robert and Elizabeth Waters - Riverdale, MD - 1912 |
My mother died in April 2008. She followed her
brother Bob who had died just four months earlier. My mother (Elizabeth) and Uncle Bob were named for my
grandmother’s sister and brother - Robert and Elizabeth Waters- who died in 1914 just
weeks apart. They were 16 and 18 years old.
Robert hit his head while getting off a street car when he was making a trip to DC. He developed meningitis, but the doctors couldn't identify the sickness initially. His older sister Libby took care of him at home. By the time they figured out that Robert was contagious, Libby was already showing symptoms. She was whisked away from Robert's bedside and put in quarantine. She missed Robert's funeral. She died two weeks later.
So many times I heard about how my great-grandmother's hair turned completely white the year after Robert and Elizabeth died - how the deaths of her two eldest children defined her life. She never got over it.
How could she?
It’s strange to ponder that coincidental repetition of another Elizabeth
following her brother Robert in death as time circles around us. Death has such a darkness about it. We don't know where they're going... only that they are not with us and we can't see them safely to the other side.
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| Robert and Elizabeth Granados - Riverdale - 1941 |
My mother and Uncle Bob died in their seventies after raising large families and living full lives. But losing a loved one - any loved one - will mark Christmas with that absence forever.
Several people close to us have suffered losses this year, and this will be their “first” Christmas without
that loved one. As time goes on, the sting will lessen, and the vacancy left will be filled by remembrances. And those recollections will become the bandages that cover the scars of loss - until the scars disappear - if they ever disappear.
If you are loved, you are never forgotten.
As we navigate through the revolutions of
the passing years, Christmas is a time when we pause. We reflect on birth, beginning,
light coming into the darkness – a light that the darkness cannot overcome. We look forward to another year and hope for
blessings.
It’s a time we remember
everything we ever loved, when joys and sorrows are magnified and felt stronger
than other times of the year.
Love is
what knits the Christmases of our past into a warm garment of memory that cloaks future Christmases. It’s that
love that pushes us year after year to make this season special.
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| Tristan - 5 minutes old |
In
doing research for my book, Thin Places – Celtic Doorways to the Otherworld – I read this quote
by the late Celtic mystic, John O’Donohue.
If you could interview a baby in the womb, and it asks
you, “what’s going to happen to me?”
You’d say “you’re going to go through a dark channel. You’re going to be pushed out. You’ll arrive into a vacant world of open air
and light. The cord that connects you to
your mother is going to be cut. You going to be on your own forevermore and
regardless of how close you come to anyone, you’ll never be able to belong in
the way that you’ve belonged here.” The
baby would have no choice by to conclude that it was going to die. … when in actual fact .. it’s being born.
It can be scary to go on without
those we've lost, but every new beginning starts with an end. Christmas is a time we can all beginning anew - together.
Excerpt from Burgoyne Christmas Letter 2009
Happy Christmas, Hanukkah and Festivus for the Rest of Us
When People Hurt at Christmas
Excerpt from Burgoyne Christmas Letter 2009
When People Hurt at Christmas
Great post, Mindie ... loved the O’Donohue quote. I never thought about it that way.
ReplyDeleteI love this poem by Pablo Neruda (translated by Brian Patten)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tumblr.com/tagged/so-many-different-lengths-of-time
I think it really sums up our links between life and death. We are never apart from our loved ones, they just go on a different path to us for a little while, and are always around to help us.
Both my brother and mother passed suddenly. Four of his closest friends, and four of my school friends also passed suddenly An aunt and uncle lost five of their children before the children were 20.
Its hard sometimes, especially at Christmas, to deal with it. However, another lens to view it is to see it as its part of love and loving people, part of lifes tapestry. I love this piece by Kahil Gibran
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
"Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed". Kahil Gibran
Kahil Gibran was such a mystic. Love the poem, Maura. Love your line .... "We are never apart from our loved ones, they just go on a different path to us for a little while."
ReplyDeleteSometimes we need a little help getting our arms around the concept of life and life after death coexisitng.
Happy Christmas.