Feather and Ash

I don’t know what I expected it to be.  Maybe I did.  Maybe I thought everything about this season would feel nauseating. Maybe I thought I would feel angry and robbed to sense others' anticipation and happiness as they celebrated with family. Maybe I thought I wouldn’t be able to stop weeping. Maybe I thought all those things could be true, but it was not like that. But it wasn't easy either.  I have cried deeply, honestly, everyday.  I delayed decorations and avoided celebrations as long as I could. I stayed in bed for two days last week when everything felt too heavy and hard to do.  We didn’t get our tree until the 22nd. No gifts until the 23rd. Didn’t wrap a thing until the 24th. Instead of a long, dreadful walk through garish, manufactured, sugarplum happiness, Christmas came almost like a shot at the doctor’s office you didn’t see coming. It’s here. You're doing it. It’s done before you can even get yourself too worked up.  So no matter what I though...

Though the mountains be shaken      and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken      nor my covenant of peace be removed,”      says the Lord , who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10 We build our mountains out of many things, don’t we? We build mountains out of careers, out of wealth, out of success, out of beauty, out of family. Carefully, we pour our effort into constructing these monuments to our human experience, ever higher, hoping the majesty we leave behind will inspire and make a lasting difference. This will be my legacy. This is evidence of a meaningful life. This will stand, unassailed.  But we are incorrect. This is a world of mirage. It turns out these mountains are closer to gossamer than stone, trailing through our grasping fingers. Nothing we build in this world is eternal. The unshakable can be shaken. The hills can unthinkably be removed without warning. It can happen in an...

Jonah was a tradition super fan. Not only did he love all the long-established traditions in our family, but he loved declaring something a new tradition. In recent years, our new traditions began to include a Christmas movie each night in December, Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving on, binging the Great British Baking Show together, and subsequent Christmas baking projects with mom (cookies, treats, even a yule log - he had already been talking about doing that one again this year). We had traditions around the Christmas tree selection, the night we decorated the tree, when and how we decorated the house, what movies we watched and when, what music we listened to and when. He kept them. He insisted upon them. He loved them. His joy was a wave that swept through us all, carrying us through this season in such a state of gratitude and laughter and love.  And Christmas morning was the zenith of our family expression of Christmas tradition. Just the four of us, matching ...

We did it. We made it. And we even enjoyed Thanksgiving more than we might have thought possible. We were soft with one another and we were honest with one another and we made it. But maybe more than that, we were carried through it.  When our children are little, we lift them up so they can try to practice standing on our lap, strengthening their balance and little leg muscles. Or we hold their tiny hands as they learn to walk, supporting most of their weight while they concentrate on learning the motions. That is what it’s like. I feel like I am relearning the motions, building strength back in my living balance, while those around me bear most of my weight, preventing me from collapsing to the ground and making no progress at all.  Sometimes it is our family, taking special effort to visit or to make sure we are not alone on important days, who grieve along with us.  Sometimes it is our beloved surrogate children - Benjamin, Owen, Ruthie, Maya, Eric, Jancy, to name a f...

This was always a special day for me and Jonah. Preparations would start days in advance. We would plan who was cooking what, we would go grocery shopping together, and the night before we would begin prepping our stuffing, making chex mix, and dialing into our joyous pregame energy. We just loved it all. The next morning we would be up early, tuck the turkey into the oven and savor one of our favorite rituals - the parade. Just me and him, jammies, coffee, blankets, and Al Roker. We would laugh and crack jokes and reminisce over memories from our time living near NYC when he was little. We would always take him to see the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular just after Thanksgiving and the first time we took him as a little boy, he was convinced the Rockettes I had described were really the Rockheads, and was disappointed when they didn’t *quite* live up to his 3 year old imagination. Every year we would chuckle as we watched them dance for us on TV.  After a walk and showe...

Not long after Jonah died, Christian had a dream. He watched helplessly as a train hurdled toward the church where he works and where all his numerous, carefully curated theological volumes now live on ordered shelves. The train smashed into the exact spot where his books were, leaving a flaming mass of paper and ash in its wake. His categories, the wisdom of thinkers long admired, instantly reduced to cinder. A devastation of ideas. The basis and bibliography of an earnest, thoughtful life’s work, no more.  That imaginary train may as well have run itself through the very center of our home, too.  Through the center of our vital organs. Through our brain, lungs, guts. We may as well have been on that train, our soft bodies hurling in space, smashing into metal, glass, and rail, passing through fire and smoke, coming to rest finally, stunned, broken, ears ringing with tears in our eyes.  Crawling from the wreckage, slowly, instinct taking over, because logic and reason ar...

People have apologized to me lately. Not because they have done anything wrong, but because when I sincerely ask how they are, tears often come. As they begin to describe their own sadness, difficulty, or loss, they quickly catch themselves. “I mean it is nothing compared to what you have suffered…”. They apologize as if my grief outweighs their own. Somehow more worthy of notice. Perhaps it is true, in a universal measure, what I carry is heavier. It is certainly the heaviest thing I have ever carried, to be sure. But this experience of grief does not belong to a singular subset. Who is to say the crucible you are living through today is not more deserving of recognition than mine?  Grief belongs to everyone.  Because this human experience is filled with loss,  and every loss, is a loss.  But sometimes we pretend it’s not true, don’t we? Surely what I am experiencing is not grief, we say. We call it by other names sometimes - stress, relentless worry, fear, sle...