The Estes Park Chorale’s version of the Twelve Days of Christmas was hilarious, with two members providing “interpretation” for each of the twelve days. Turning to see Jim laughing so hard tears fell down his cheeks, I could hear Bee’s voice imploring “Don’t cry Santa Claus!” Who knows where she came up with that one? I can’t see Jim laughing so hard without hearing it in my mind, bringing a smile to my face.
Then they sang I’ll Be Home for Christmas, and I knew I was in deep. Not only was Bee not home that last Christmas of 2021, but she would never be home for Christmas again. Grief crept in, uninvited. I pushed it away, impatient or maybe even fearful of allowing those heavy feelings to take hold. But I know better. Ignored, grief only builds and suffocates, draining the joy from living.
Later, I finally slowed down and let all the feelings rise, allowing the tears to flow for all the losses that have broken my heart, including and especially Bee’s death. I raged at the brevity of her earthly journey, hearing echoes of my own wailing that day my heart shattered. I wept for the way her suffering eventually overwhelmed the wonder and joy she also knew. And I collapsed under the weight of the sickening reality of her absence—the gaping hole where her laughter, hugs, creativity and quirkiness once lived, concrete and tangible. This endless well of grief a constant reminder of someone essential missing.
Yet grief, when I remember to hold it close, ceases to be the enemy. It becomes a warm blanket, wrapping me in love. As the tears flow, I let myself move deeply into the tender sweetness of old memories: hunting for the perfect tree, finding just the right branch to hold each ornament, making sure breakable ones hung higher than Howie’s and/or Bailey’s tails. Decorating and cooking to our favorite massive Christmas playlist, where Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer might be followed by Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.
Most beloved of all, snuggling together each night, we would read aloud from one of the many Christmas children’s books we had from when they were little. The books, festively perched on our windowsills during this season, waited their turn to delight us. Goofy ones like Uncle Mugsy and the Terrible Twins and fanciful ones like Is That You, Winter? mixed with poignant ones like Toot and Puddle’s I’ll Be Home For Christmas.
Each creche scene with its own place of honor came out in Advent, but absent the baby Jesus until Christmas Eve. Occasionally, in my busyness I’d forget, and the kiddos would laugh and remind me, “something’s missing!” on Christmas Day.
As I sat with these memories, I remembered Christmas itself holds the answer to my sorrow. At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of the Word in the world. The radical, wondrous idea that the Holy chooses to be within the messy, hard of this earthly existence as human, Jesus, Emmanuel, God-With-Us. In this timeless mystery, the stuff of earth—and of each of us—is embraced, honored, blessed. In all our frailty. In all our limits. In all our quirky, wayward ways. Just as we are. We are embraced, honored, blessed. We are matter. And we matter.
Bee’s earthly journey, just shy of nineteen years, matters. Her radiant smile and bear hugs, inspired creativity and terrible suffering, quirky humor and deep wisdom all matter. Her physical absence, matters. As do our tears, the empty place at the table, the ache in my arms that long to hold her again.
It all matters: my sorrow, your sorrow, the struggle and suffering across this world, no matter their size. This is a particularly meaningful time for many, and it can also be a painful one. As the nights grow longer and the festivities gear up, so does the longing for those we love but no longer see. Memories surge, emotions flow more freely, sorrow joy’s counterweight. If you find yourself feeling this ache, know that you are not alone. Your grief, too, is held in love.
But if we cling to our sorrow, transfixed by our emotions and memories, we risk missing the true mystery and majesty of Christmas. This birth doesn’t simply bless and consecrate the material, embodied life. Jesus, by entering time, shows us how to live eternity within time. By becoming human, he reveals to us our true nature: divine love and light entering space and time as each one of us. Yet for much of our lives, we are asleep to this reality, unaware of the sacred permeating all that is, even our broken hearts.
When we center our well-being on external circumstances, we ride the waves on the surface of our life, always fearful something is missing or will be lost. The invitation is to live from our depths, to know a joy not dependent on circumstances, as fourteenth century mystic Meister Eckhart counsels. Paradoxically, I found this joy when my heart shattered into a million pieces. It doesn’t prevent painful feelings but allows them to flow and be felt without clinging nor overwhelming.
This birth, and the joy it brings, doesn’t require a broken heart. It’s available to all of us through the radical invitation to surrender self and all things to Love and Love alone, leading to union with God. In this mystery, everything radiates with this holy Love, even our tears. When I identify wholly with my emotions, something is indeed missing. But when I remember who I am in my deepest depths, the Ground of the Soul as Eckhart calls it, I am united with God and all that is, past, present and future. And within this surrender to all but Love, Meister Eckhart’s wisdom rings true:
Your face is so fully turned towards this birth that, no matter what you see or hear, you can get nothing but this birth from all things. All things become simply God to you, for in all things you notice only God.
One year for reasons beyond our knowing, Bee sang out “Happy Holidays!” every time she came through the swinging door from the kitchen, although it wasn’t anywhere near Christmastime. Maybe it was just Bee being silly, or maybe this wisdom was being planted even back then: learn to see and celebrate the joy hidden within each and every holy day.
Bee, you will be home for Christmas in your own way—in my heart and in my dreams—for we are forever connected in this Love that even death cannot touch. I am profoundly grateful for your ongoing loving, living presence in absence with me always and in the larger reality beyond this life yet always also closer than we imagine.
What might it look like to see Love shimmering in and through your precious life, just as it is?
Holding you, and all of us, this season, in Love, Elizabeth
Elizabeth Jameson is an ordained Episcopal priest who lives in Estes Park. She blogs on Substack at Broken Open.
*Cyprian Smith’s Way of Paradox quoting Eckhart from Walsche, vol. 1, page 45.
You must be logged in to post a comment.