“All that we love deeply
becomes a part of us.” 
Helen Keller

I remember it well — Christmas 2008. 

Dad had died, quite unexpectedly, on the last day of July. I had a tough time coping with the reality of his death, and found myself enveloped in a fog of depression which lasted, to some degree, for several years. 

The holiday season of 2008 was unbearable.The sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of the Christmas season were some of my favorite childhood experiences. Christmas music brought back wonderful memories of holidays past. Holiday decorations warmed my spirit, despite the colder days of December. The sweet smell of hot cider and the rich taste of egg nog nurtured my soul each year. Christmas 2008, however, was a different experience for me. 

When Dad died, my senses were dulled to all that was good about the holiday season. I had no desire to put up our Christmas decorations. I couldn’t listen to Christmas music. I did everything I could to avoid getting together with family and friends for holiday celebrations. For me, in that first holiday season without my Dad, there was nothing to celebrate.

It’s been fifteen years since that initial grief-filled Christmas season. I’ve learned so much about the nature of grief since that time. Rather than allowing myself to succumb to the darkness, I’ve learned to embrace my grief — with gratitude. 

This year, a number of people I know are confronted with their first holiday season without a significant loved one. I understand their pain. While I don’t agree with the old adage that time heals all wounds, I do know that time gradually eases the pain and enables us to open our hearts to the present moment and to those with whom we share this special time of year.

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver penned these words which seem so appropriate for today.     

“That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer, and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,
as well as friends.
Still, I was bent
and my laughter,
as the poet said,
was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry,
but how you carry it —
books, bricks, grief —
it’s all in the way you embrace it,
balance it, carry it,
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe
also troubled —
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love to which there is no reply?”