This has always been my favorite time of year, this magical valley between Thanksgiving and Christmas. As the air gets colder, my soul seems to get warmer. The lights, the decorations, the music, the movies, the cherished memories of yuletide seasons gone by. The glacial December crescendo is a soul-deep experience, and there’s truly nothing I don’t love about it (no, not even the traffic).
But for the grieving heart, this magical valley can be a very dark place. Instead of conjuring warmth for the griever, yuletide memories often sear like knives, cutting reminders of an inaccessible past and a future forever altered by the fallout.
My first Christmas without my wife is a poignant example. Though I can honestly say it was still magical – the lights, the music, the crescendo, and the rest – it was all sort of blurry. I was doing all the same things I normally do, and it was all just as wonderful. The lights weren’t somehow dimmer because I was hurting; they shined just as brightly as they ever had.
It wasn’t the light that had changed. It was my eyes.
Because, you see, I wasn’t focused on the lights, or the music, or the movies, or any other seasonal splendor. Instead, I was focused on the negative space, captivated by the void that had been sliced into the fabric of my existence. What existed couldn’t compete with what didn’t; the emptiness dominated the fullness.
I was equally and wholeheartedly consumed by the presence of absence and the absence of presence.
The negative space was virally contagious – it infected everything. Suddenly my magical valley was a war-torn desert, bereft of all warmth and light, utterly and unnervingly empty. Sound familiar? I hope not, but negative space invades us all eventually.
The only cure is to focus on the absolute presence of presence.
This is not to say, “focus on what you have and forget about what you have lost.” Quite the opposite, in fact. Focusing on the absolute presence of presence is realizing that negative space doesn’t really exist. Absence can only exist as a direct byproduct of presence; therefore, absence should remind us of presence, not the other way around.
Make no mistake – loss is real, as is the absence of a dear loved one. But as I said before, it’s not the light that has changed. It’s how you see it.
This Christmas season, I encourage you to see the negative space for what it really is: a false-front, a distraction from your growth and healing, an impediment to your ability to once again experience warmth, and joy, and magic.
Bring the blurriness into focus and you’ll find that absence is an impostor. For as I wrote in my last post, 3 Reasons to be Grateful in Grief, grief is merely the absence of something that was once present:
“I am grateful in my grief because it reminds me of a gift I once received. It reminds me that the gift was real, and that I opened it. It reminds me of the sights, smells, and splendor of the thing, of the existence I once bore, of the privilege that was mine.”
As the December crescendo begins its slow climb toward Christmas, may absence remind you of presence, and in the throes of your grief, may your eyes open anew.
For even though the past is inaccessible and the future is forever altered, the light still shines.
Brighter than ever before.
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