December 26, 2009 – 4:00 am
Another Christmas with a child missing and “glad tidings of great joy”
We made it through our first more traditional Christmas celebration at home this year since Daniel died.
In some ways, it was a very pleasant Christmas week with family activities, a beautiful church service, and a few gatherings with close friends. I think we all enjoyed most of this time together and were able to participate in these experiences with a sense of joy and gratitude.
Carol and I fully understand how much Ben and Hannah need to have this “normalcy” in their lives and how much we also need to share in these experiences with them in meaningful and honest ways as well. Toward that end, I feel like we had some success in our celebrations together.
As is often the case, all this is true and yet there is also a sub-plot to our current story in terms of how we each must wrestle with our hearts as we go through these experiences without Daniel in our midst. There have been many moments this week when Carol and I have been very aware of missing Daniel – watching our kids or listening to some conversation, seeing in our mind’s eye how Daniel would have been in the middle of these engagements, and deeply missing him in those moments.
At these times we become acutely aware of the still fresh pain in our hearts – the yearning we feel for Daniel to still be here among us. We yearn to be able to see this boy who was seemingly so naturally full of joy and was so able to share that joy with his siblings, family, and friends – to simply see him continue living joyfully and get to experience these relationships and moments together.
Carol (more so than me lately) has had some “grief bursts” throughout these days – Alan Wolfelt’s apt description of the emotions that come when these longings come up into our hearts and consciences – sudden bursts of tears coming from “nowhere”, though the source is all too clear in our minds.
So we trudge on, not knowing exactly what to do with all of these paradoxical feelings of joy amid sorrow, darkness shadowing the light, and grief alongside grace. These complex mixtures of dual realities seem to define our journey now and perhaps forever will. Loving Daniel for 18+ years during his life on earth cannot simply end just because he died – there is no switch in us to turn off that love, so we continue to love him and thus to miss him deeply.
At the same time, Christmas reminds us and indeed is an annual celebration of our Christian hope – that Jesus was born in a lowly manger 2000 years ago so that he might die on a cross, be resurrected and in this great mystery, pave the way of salvation and eternal life for all who believe.
Though many choose to not believe this mystery, as a grieving father, my faith this Christmas somehow provides a peace that Daniel lives on somewhere in a place we call heaven and I will get to see him again someday and catch up on some of what we have now missed in our relationship with him on earth.
Perhaps all I can do is to simply accept this realization as a gift – an example of “glad tidings of great joy” that the angels announced to some bewildered shepherds tending their flocks on a hillside on that first Christmas morning.
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