child loss, bereavement, tcf canada, tcf, compassionate friends, grief, grieving

The Season Of Light

It's dark outside and it's only 4:30. It's cold. Frost traces delicate etchings across the frozen windowpanes and filters what little light is left of the day. Already the gloom has descended. Tiny flickers of light begin to penetrate the darkness as we try to chase away the night with the warmth of candles and lamps.

But the lights we turn on do not seem to pierce the emptiness of this winter season. As we set the dishes and count the silverware, we are acutely aware of the empty places at the family table. We try to find the holiday spirit, but when the FAMILY CIRCLE has been broken by death, the only things that sparkle this season, may be tears. Instead of bringing warmth, love and excitement, the holiday season can be a painful reminder of the empty space at the table, of the terrible hole in the family fabric.

The holiday season can be a time when the PAST and the PRESENT collide. We try to recapture what we once had or blot out bad memories. We try to ignore the empty chair. It is a time of short days and longer nights, of icy winds, cold hands and empty hearts.

While most of the world seems to be addressing holiday greeting cards and planning holiday menus, the bereaved are struggling with other concerns: How long does grief last? Will the holidays always be THIS AWFUL? How many stockings do we hang? What do we do with the empty place at the table? What is there to be thankful for THIS year?

Maybe nothing seems quite right in your house or in your heart this season. Can you ever be happy again? Will the sights and sounds of the holiday season ever touch you again? Will there ever be LIGHT again?

We hold our breath and hope the holidays go quickly. We doubt we can endure too long. We sit in the dark, because we think we have forgotten the light.

We wish for some sign of hope in this season of icicles ... some magical sign that will keep us going until the warmth of spring arrives. We turn on all the lights in an attempt to chase away the grief.

There must be light SOMEWHERE! No matter how shattered your life, how fragmented your dreams, there must be hope somewhere!

Our loved ones have DIED. We did not lose them or the love we share. Practice thinking and then saying, "My loved one died," not, "I lost my loved one." Our loved ones are still and always will be a part of us. We cannot lose their love.

Sometimes, especially in the early months and even years of grief, all we can remember is the pain and horribleness of our loved one's death. Pain seems to overshadow everything.
At first, all I could remember were the awful things. I kept track of all the things I didn't have any more and made mental lists of the things I would never know or experience. Joy had been buried one afternoon in late fall and there was to be no light for us...ever again.

But, as I LIVED through those memories, I discovered that the pain of this darkness could change its intensity and its depth. Slowly, gently, as I allowed them to, those painful memories faded and were replaced, in time, with memories of HIS smile, his LIFE DAYS not his DEATH DAYS.

I began to remember that my loved one LIVED....not just that he DIED! His LIGHT HAD GIVEN BIRTH TO OUR HAPPINESS AND ONCE I ACKNOWLEDGED THE DARKNESS, THE LIGHT COULD BEGIN TO PEEK THROUGH!

LIVE THROUGH THE HURT SO THAT JOY CAN RETURN TO WARM YOUR HEART!

May these holidays be wondrous for you. May you find the gifts of joy and the memory of love given and received. These are the treasures of your life. May you rediscover them again and again.
This is the Season of Light ... for it is the season when we remember that once we loved and were loved. And that is the greatest light and memory of all!

Darcie D. Sims