Silent Night

As I sip coffee and stare out into the night, I’m struck by the concept of continuity. The moonlight bathes the bare branches, forming a latticework of silver streaks set against the stars. The grass is beginning to sparkle, a gentle prelude to the shimmering rime that will accompany the dawn. It’s still and quiet, these late hours when the world slumbers, and I can’t get my mind off how it’s all knit together so perfectly, seamless by design, like nature’s quilt.

This silent night is not altogether unlike my grief; for, at times, it too seems to be knit together seamlessly. But as I’ve illustrated so many times before, the linearity of grief is an illusion (The Invisible Colors of Grief). We want it to follow chronology, to mimic the mesmerizing continuity of a silent night, but it simply doesn’t.

Even C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest writers (and thinkers) of all time, fell victim to the illusion. In his book, A Grief Observed, Lewis writes these words:

“Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It follows marriage as normally as marriage follows courtship or as autumn follows summer.”

Though the ultimate point Lewis is making is beyond the scope of this post, it seems he is merely commenting on nature’s quilt. He is constructing his own silent night, and in turn, finding it empty.

A few pages later, he acknowledges the fault in his thinking:

“Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend might reveal a totally new landscape. As I’ve already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat.”

The silent night and the circular trench can be mighty foes. For, if they took down an intellectual giant like Lewis after the loss of his wife, then I stand no chance whatsoever. Thus, as we progress along our various grief journeys, we must constantly bombard the illusion with truth: There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat.

Only upon accepting this reality will we find our way home.

With all that said, there is one linear aspect of grief, one element of bereavement that defies the illusion. For the sake of our purposes here, let’s call it heartbreak.

Heartbreak is linear because it is always forward-moving, ever capitalizing on its own momentum. A single inciting incident – in my case, the death of a spouse – jumpstarts the motion, and before long it becomes a devastating avalanche, leaving complete desolation in its wake. Then, of course, that desolation serves as an inciting incident for the next avalanche. And in this way, the forward motion continues and the momentum multiplies.

There is only one way to stop it – we must attack it at the source.

Heartbreak begets heartbreak. Or, as Jon Weece, the pastor of Southland Christian Church, put it, “Hurt people hurt people.”

You see, my fellow griever, we are the source. It’s up to us to stop the avalanche.

When my wife died, my heartbreak triggered an avalanche that destroyed the entirety of my social life; my heartbreak spread like a viral contagion to all those around me. But it needn’t be that way. In fact, it mustn’t.

Let me encourage you that, even in your grief – especially in your grief – we must be the unyielding barricade that stops the avalanche. Instead of being the source of heartbreak, we must be the source of healing to those around us.

Let’s be the hurt people that help people this Christmas season. And before we know it, in the late hours while the world slumbers, healing may break the silence.

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Photo Credit: Liz West (Flickr Creative Commons)