Nows and Forevers

Those who are hurting from the loss of loved ones, no matter how long ago, this holiday season, I see you.

I am you.

Decembers have hurt in varying degrees since I spent a final Christmas week with my mother, dying of cancer in her 40s, in 1993. She passed days later. That sent me into a skid, a long and dark time in my life. Though I was foolish to think Mom dying was as bad as it would get. Eight years later, three days after Christmas at a hospital in New York, at the happiest moment of my life, another loss showed me how naive I had been. That led to another skid.

And a decade ago this month, I said goodbye to my grandmother. Three losses, all in December or immediately after. A few years ago my dad also almost died two days before Christmas. I distrust December.

To be sure, I have a lot of blessings in my life. I know how lucky I am.

Sorrow and grief don’t follow a straight path. They pop up when you least expect it. Could be a reminder of your past, and then you are back in it. Or December itself. Some years are better than others, but 2022 has been tougher.

But I know a lot of other people feel the same way this holiday season. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, I keep hearing. Except that for more people than you would think, it’s not. The loss could be weeks old or decades old, but we feel it. And it doesn’t happen in December.

And we can feel guilty, as I do, for feeling this way. I don’t want to drag down anyone’s joy. Maybe expressing my vulnerability here will provide some comfort to the others who have lost and are missing what was or never was.

And so I came here, a United Methodist Church near where I live, this Christmas Eve. I didn’t know anyone. The Methodist church – in Connecticut and Massachusetts, Maine and New York, and Pennsylvania and California – is where I spent four decades of meaningful time with four people I have loved so much. Three are relatives. All are no longer in this world, and this as close as I can get to them now. I haven’t been a regular churchgoer in 18 years and haven’t been since my grandfather died 10 years ago.

This is where I needed to be Christmas Eve.