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December 14, 2015December 13, 2015

Sometimes It Seems Like I Am the Ghost in the Room

Photo by Jean-Pierre Brungs via Unsplash

The first Advent Letter to Those We’ve Lost is written by Rebecca Mast. Her husband Daniel died in a tragic accident in May of 2013, and while I never met Daniel, it’s clear to me that he was a talented photographer, a doting father, and a loving husband. Daniel and Rebecca had two children when he died, and she went on to deliver their third child in the months after he passed away. Here is the letter from Rebecca to Daniel.

* * * * *

Beloved Warrior,

It’s lonely here. The busyness and cheer are loud in my aching ears. I used to love this time, love the gathering and drawing close, the excitement of family and gifts and time to hold each other against the cold. Trying to find space to both grieve and celebrate is exhausting. I don’t want to drag anyone else down into the dark that pulls at my soul, but it’s isolating to feel so singular in this season of together. I want to make good memories for these three little faces that look to me for their cues, but the weight of performance, of responsibility, of expectation…it’s all too much. You were my social buffer, the safe place in the crowd, the reassurance from across the room, the anchor in the storm of activity. I feel untethered. Lost in the crowd. I can drift to the outside and observe the melding of families and feel like I’m melting away. I am not my best self without you.

Sometimes it seems like I am the ghost in the room.

We will hang your stocking again this year and the kids and I will write you letters to put in them. I will make space for them to miss you and try not to insist they feel what I feel. I will try and let myself cry – and also let myself laugh – without being afraid of everyone’s opinions on how happy or sad I am. The pressure to be well, to be better than last year, to have pulled myself together “by now,” is overwhelming. And maybe it’s all in my head. All my own expectations and disappointments. But grief is not linear and healing doesn’t come like it does with a physical wound; rather, my heart is sewn up and split open repeatedly. There is no space to fall apart and the terror of ruining the Holidays for people you love because of your emotional mess is debilitating at times. I want to be okay but I don’t want to pretend. I miss you.

I miss your eyes – seeing how you saw our children. These particles of us that have become so much more than reflections of our own selves. I need someone else to exclaim over the growth and change and wonder of watching babies become children and children become more adult. I need to step back and observe you loving on them, observe your adoration and enthusiasm for their lives and beings. I get so caught up in the daily overwhelming of caring for their needs that I forget to see them in the whole. I miss the rhythm of our life together and I can’t keep up with this new life with which I’m left. I wish I didn’t have to do this without you.

I keep looking for the hope that Christmas is supposed to represent and it’s been hard to find lately. I’m still waiting for you…despite knowing you aren’t walking through the door again. But I see your love in your son’s hands on my face when he says he loves me. I see you in your daughter’s smile and your other son’s laugh. I feel your love in your parents’ hugs and your siblings’ laughter. You are here in the cracks – I wish it was enough. I miss you, Beloved.

Your Beauty

Rebecca

* * * * *

Please feel free to leave a note to Rebecca in the comments if you’d like.

If you’d like to know why I’m running this series of letters during Advent to those we’ve lost, you can find the answer HERE.

If you would like to write a letter to a loved one who has passed away, feel free to send it (500 words or less) to the Contact tab at the top of this page. I’m sorry but I can’t guarantee it will be published because I’m not sure if I’ll continue the series or not. But feel free to submit one if you’d like, and I promise I’ll read it.

Finally, we’ve completed the first season of the podcast, The Story of My Death. Caleb Wilde, Bryan Allain, and I recorded three different episodes in which we interview people who tell compelling, intimate stories about death. Caleb tries to give away a Hearse. Bryan rarely stops eating. The episodes are funny, sad, poignant, and heartwarming. You can check out the first season of episodes HERE.

December 13, 2015December 12, 2015

Advent Letters to Those We’ve Lost

I think Advent and Grief are two sisters wandering the wide world, two sisters who every year cross paths and decide to walk together for a spell. If you are so brave as to step foot in a shopping mall this time of year, it seems that for every wide-eyed child waiting in a long line to meet Santa, you’ll also find a grown-up wandering the store with empty eyes, someone for whom this season brings thoughts of what-ifs and might-have-beens.

I write this without any pride or malice, simply as a statement of fact: this world has been kind to me. My parents are together and living. Only one of my twenty aunts and uncles has passed away. I have one grandmother remaining, and she is dear to me. My grandfathers both died relatively young, in their late 50s or early 60s.

We grieved through two miscarriages. Yes. There was that. And there have been financial avalanches, but we have not yet been overcome. And yes, we grieved the loss of communities when we moved by choice or by necessity.

But as I get older, I start to recognize the deep grief around me. Parents losing children. Spouses dying far too soon. Cancer. Divorce. ALS. This world can be a dark and shadowy place.

Grief refuses to leave us, even when her sister Advent draws near. And so I am beginning to see how the holiday season can, for some, only serve to magnify the scope of their loss.

This week I’m going to share some special, intimate letters with you. Notes written from people during Advent to those who they have lost. There is a young mother of three who lost her husband in a tragic accident. There are daughters who lost their mothers. A husband who lost his wife.

This is the face of Grief, and we do ourselves no favors if we ignore it. We do our fellow sojourners an injustice when we expect them to put a happy face on so that we can have the all-smiles holiday we’re looking for. Please read these letters and consider reaching out to someone you know, someone who has recently suffered loss, someone who bears the heavy burden of grief. It gets a little heavier this time of year. They need someone to help them carry it.

I think if you do, you’ll both, together, discover a new kind of joy. A new kind of peace.

Did you know I started doing a podcast with Bryan Allain and Caleb Wilde called The Story of My Death? In it we interview people and they tell a story about a loved one who died. Sounds depressing? You should check it out – the stories are beautiful, and the people are strong. You can find it HERE.

December 12, 2015

Marriage is a Sacrament, They Say

photo-1429961449642-0d5a0d68245f — Photo by Samuel Zeller via Unsplash

When December days are warmer
than they should be, and no one is home,
everyone scattered like dust in different corners
of this city, I sit on the porch and wait
for you.

Arriving without any
of our five children (God bless my mother),
you lead me hand-in-hand into the empty house
that now feels more like a church, a holy space
made up of diagonal light and quiet.

Marriage is a sacrament, they say, a sign
of the sacred.

Outside the house, cars roll down James
Street. Outside the house, people leave the barber’s
smelling of after-shave, the wind pulling at
their new hair. Outside the house, December takes
the last leaf from the ancient sycamore. Is there

anything outside the house that knows
of the holy space between us? The way diagonal
light gently rests on rounded sheets? Or
how, later, you hold my hand and we slip inside
a merciful sleep?

Marriage is a sacrament, they say, a sign
of the sacred.

December 10, 2015

Five of My Favorite Blog Posts From This Week

“It’s subtle, but there’s a real difference between telling us they want something versus simply stating the fact that they like something. Heck, I’ll even verbally point out to the kids when I like something. It helps them understand that they can appreciate something without necessarily owning it, and it’s a lot easier on my ears, too.”

* * * * *

“On Sunday, we lit the second Advent candle, the candle of peace. Or, we tried to. An argument broke out between my younger son on one side of the table and my firstborn girl on the other. As quickly as he lit the candle, she blew it out. Light the candle. Blow it out.”

“’It’s not your turn,’ someone hissed.”

* * * * *

It was her pink jaguar print nightgown; she was trying to wear it as a ‘hijab.’ There were a lot of Muslim girls in her kindergarten class, and their head scarves were beautiful.

I paused. “Honey,” I began, “Umm, you can’t wear a nightgown on your head to school.”

* * * * *

Now I am awake and thinking
of his voice splitting the night
like an angel choir, the words,
“I love you” falling like snow
across an otherwise silent night.

* * * * *

The story goes that from that time

many of his disciples went back,

and walked with him no more.

Sounds familiar as I am often sheared

by words from the gentle lamb of God.

December 10, 2015

Win Seven FREE Books By Your Favorite Authors

Every year I have friends who write beautiful books. And every year I preorder a few of these books, only to later receive an advanced copy or review copy from them, which means, yeah, I end up with a few doubles. I was trying to figure out what to do with all of my doubles this year, and then I thought, hey, I’ll give them to you guys. In one fell swoop.

These are the books I’m giving away to one lucky winner:

Coming Clean
Bandersnatch
40/40 Vision
Searching for Sunday
Preemptive Love
Pocket Guide to the Bible
The Day the Angels Fell

The Rafflecopter giveaway is listed below. Click on each of the options below to gain entries. I think you can get three additional entries every day by coming back here and Tweeting about the contest. If you have any questions about how this thing works, let me know.

Good luck!

(Also, today we released Episode 03 of our podcast, The Story of My Death: it’s called “A Good Death.” You can check out all of the episodes HERE.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

December 9, 2015December 8, 2015

When the Good is Hard to Find

Today, I’m over at the wonderful site You Are Here writing about how we found home again:

As the months passed, I found work. We settled into a routine and made new friends. We found a church to call home. The things we had lost in Virginia would not be replaced, but there were good things to be found, even in that new place.

It can sometimes be hard to believe there is still good in the world. It can be so hard to find, especially after The Move or The Diagnosis or The Divorce. But it’s still there. We might not be ready to discover it right away, but the world will thaw, and the good will appear in the most unlikely of places.

(Click HERE to read the rest of the post.)