A dear friend asked me how I was doing...a question that comes from someone willing to risk walking into the pain of the deep grief I am walking through. I cried and replied that I was "limping through".
We decorated..."sort of". For a lady who loves to decorate her surroundings, a corner doesn't seem like enough and yet the corner has become a symbol of light on these dark and difficult days.
And while it isn't like years ago when the tribe was together and we danced around and sang off key and laughter was bursting forth in carefree abandon as we added "just one more light to an empty room already covered in happy decorations"...the corner has become a gentle reminder of hope.
We decorated this corner last year-almost in defiance of facing the first Christmas without my dad and my grandmother in the hospital. At first we cried as we hung up a simple strand of lights... missing my dad who loved Christmas so deeply...but then the simple strand of lights brought a gentle reminder to us of light in the dark.
So this year we added a bit to the corner of additional precious pieces that have special meaning (like the mini tree that we found years ago at a thrift store for $1 that my dad rigged to randomly blink to play a prank on me and then couldn't fix and we still can't fix it back- haha) and it has gently reminded me that we put up lights because "the weary world rejoices".
A world like me, that is exhausted, feels like sometimes giving up, crying, confused, soul-broken, and limping through the dark.
A world, that like myself needs the gentle reminder that Christmas brings light and extinguishes the darkest silence where hope feels like it doesn't exist anymore.
For those who are limping (or desperately crawling) with shattered hearts...I am thinking of you and sending you the gentlest of hugs. You are not forgotten... you are seen in your pain. May you be gently comforted by the light today and tomorrow and as we approach a new year.
We decorated..."sort of". For a lady who loves to decorate her surroundings, a corner doesn't seem like enough and yet the corner has become a symbol of light on these dark and difficult days.
And while it isn't like years ago when the tribe was together and we danced around and sang off key and laughter was bursting forth in carefree abandon as we added "just one more light to an empty room already covered in happy decorations"...the corner has become a gentle reminder of hope.
We decorated this corner last year-almost in defiance of facing the first Christmas without my dad and my grandmother in the hospital. At first we cried as we hung up a simple strand of lights... missing my dad who loved Christmas so deeply...but then the simple strand of lights brought a gentle reminder to us of light in the dark.
So this year we added a bit to the corner of additional precious pieces that have special meaning (like the mini tree that we found years ago at a thrift store for $1 that my dad rigged to randomly blink to play a prank on me and then couldn't fix and we still can't fix it back- haha) and it has gently reminded me that we put up lights because "the weary world rejoices".
A world like me, that is exhausted, feels like sometimes giving up, crying, confused, soul-broken, and limping through the dark.
A world, that like myself needs the gentle reminder that Christmas brings light and extinguishes the darkest silence where hope feels like it doesn't exist anymore.
For those who are limping (or desperately crawling) with shattered hearts...I am thinking of you and sending you the gentlest of hugs. You are not forgotten... you are seen in your pain. May you be gently comforted by the light today and tomorrow and as we approach a new year.
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