I bolted the Christmas party, stumbling over my red plaid skirt, scrambling to stay upright in the icy parking lot, streaming tears blurring my vision. I dropped my keys, feeling for them on the wet, very cold pavement. The drive home was scary, dark and lasted longer than any twenty minute drive ought to. It wasn’t scary because the roads were busy, they weren’t. After all, it was Christmas Night and everyone was either at a family Christmas party like the one I just fled or home wrapped in cozy holiday cheer. It wasn’t dark because I was out in the country away from bright city lights; no, the road I drove was a popular well lit southeastern Michigan north-south roadway. And the drive home, by my watch, took the usual twenty minutes. It just seemed like an eternity.
The above scene I remember so vividly did not take place last week or last year. It took place seventeen years ago. My first Christmas without David, my high school sweetheart, the father of my children, my soul mate and husband for twenty-eight years. Friends and family had been so concerned about me being alone that first Christmas, we had all worked together to fill every one of my Christmas moments, including the party I bolted. In the end all I wanted was to escape everyone and be alone with my grief.
I tell you this story to identify my own darkness, different certainly than yours, but darkness nonetheless. And I tell you this story because it is as intense and real as the day it happened. Grief memories are like that. In my December journal soon after this incident I wrote, “Grief knows no bounds. That's almost cliche, but true. Grief runs rampant on my emotions. Backwards, forwards, up and down. Within a few minutes I can experience all of them. Was there ever an emotion that came close to the intensity, the scariness, the sadness, the love, the hope, the memories, the raw screaming sensation of grief?”
The second year after David died, in my annual Christmas letter, I quoted verse 6 of the carol, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel, “O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by thy justice here; disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death’s dark shadows put to flight.” The carol speaks to all of us who have groped in grief’s dark. I continued in my letter, “I am enduring. No one ever said it would be easy and it isn’t. And don’t believe it gets better. It doesn’t. The nightmares just get farther apart. But I endure. I do laugh. I do love. I do care. I cry and scream and sometimes bemoan my fate. I’ve often said, ‘How can someone survive who doesn’t have faith?’ My belief in Christ as my support, my life line, my Star, my Emmanuel, is stronger than ever. Tragedy can do that. My appreciation and love for my unbelievably large network of friends and family grows and grows! What a wonderful and beautiful caring kindness all of them have given me. I am okay because of all of them.”
I grabbed unto to friend or family member and held on for dear life. But notice it was Christ, my Emmanuel, holding my hand, leading me out of the darkness. I hardly recognized him that first year driving Christmas Night but at least by the second year I knew I couldn’t get through this wretched grief without him. The second year at least I glanced glimmers in the darkness.
“O Little Town of Bethlehem” has always been my favorite Christmas Carol. Always. As a child. As a teenager. Before David died and after David died. Seventeen years ago I could not sing a word without tears. I still have some of those tears. But the truth of the words is still there, always will be. “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
of bulbs and bells
