This Advent Letter to Those We’ve Lost is written by Guy Delcambre to his wife who he lost five years ago.

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Marianne,

You may know this.

There were days I teetered close to death myself. I wished then that I were the one who’d gone away. Not you who held the words, which soothed their baby hearts so well, but me. Behind a fixed smile hung to protect all that died within me when you left. I couldn’t help but think they were fiercely cheated in life with me alone here on this side of time. I watched in horror as their eyes dimmed and the coloring sheets they made just for you, the ones meant to comfort you, to fill the room surrounding your hospital bed, fell to the ground. Helplessly I observed death snatch innocence right from their little hearts. They trembled for years. I stumbled for some. I know you may know this. But it helps to say it still.

You may be aware of them. My, how they’ve grown! Each slowly stretching into beautiful young ladies who I’m hoping will be strong women not stained by grief, but improved by its haunting presence returning through those years. I say improved not because loss is some sort of treasure. No certainly not. Rather, loss has introduced grief into our lives and grief is a graceful teacher to those who’ll learn. We’ve learned through tears and fights and wounds splitting open again to spill longing and fear onto the floor of the house we call home.

It’s Christmastime again. The fifth since you left this life. With each passing year, the season lightens a bit more in grief’s working to loosen the suffocating grasp of loss on our family. We remember you in stories and smiles. The girls soak in them both as they learn better that grief isn’t a taker, but in this way, a giver.

We have hope here in this time present.

You may see. There’s a woman who swept into our lives as an elegant breeze. She carries hope in the warm depths of her chest. She’s unbelievably strong in the way her heart loves and often undeniably oblivious to this strength of hers. I love her deeply. And, she is brave. Unflinchingly she strolled into our tattered lives ready to join in and belong here with us. The way she smiled, as though she could see our wounds and went right about dressing them so they could heal. It was almost as if she traveled in from tomorrow or knew a secret we hadn’t yet heard. Her love stirred my heart, and I awoke someone new.

There are days now so difficult, words I still don’t have to heal their hearts with, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here now. I have something now I’ve never fully had before: hope. That’s one thing death couldn’t take. Hope is the day that never ages and calls us beyond our difficulties and ourselves. In only a way God could so reposition such a pain, I suppose this is the gift you give to us each year during this time.

You may know these things I’ve said. Still, it helps me to say them and to hold them. For the past five years since you’ve gone away have been the most beautiful to endure. I am happy and full.

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Guy Delcambre is the author of Earth and Sky, the story of a traveler walking through the deepest valley and the highest mountain, through great heartache and unexpected joy. It is not a book about grief, but a book about grace and the goodness of God in the darkest night.

Previous Advent Letters to Those We’ve Lost:

The Dust of Glory by Andi Cumbo-Floyd
This Should Be Your Second Christmas: I Wish You Were Still Here by Alise Chaffins
Dear Mom, I Have Your Christmas Cookie Cutters by Bethany Suckrow
Sometimes It Seems Like I Am the Ghost in the Room by Rebecca Mast
Advent Letters to Those We’ve Lost

Also, 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 tries to make us laugh. The episodes are funny, sad, poignant, brave, and heartwarming. You can check out the first season of episodes HERE.

This Advent Letter to Those We’ve Lost is written by Andi Cumbo-Floyd. One of my great regrets in life is that her mother died of cancer before I could meet her. She passed away on Thanksgiving Day, 2010.

Here is Andi’s letter to her:

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Dear Mama,

This morning, I found out that we are, yet again, not pregnant. . . and all I want to do is turn on the Christmas tree lights, sit beside you, and hear you tell me about when you were surprised to find out you were pregnant. I want to ask your advice about our journey. I want to get some of the comfort you gave out like breath.

But you are not here . . . still and again. . . and it is the third Sunday of Advent, and I cannot help but sit heavy with sadness – grief, once it comes in, shades everything a little more charcoal. The white Christmas lights that I insist on because you taught me their beautiful simplicity. The jigsaw puzzle of Santa that I am putting together SO slowly, doing the straight-edges first as you taught me. The journal that sits next to your Bible, the one I read every morning. All of these things carry both the light and the shadow of your existence.

In this season of waiting – for babies both eternal and mortal – I miss you. I miss your laugh – the way it filled a room with its joy. I miss your wisdom, doled out in tiny measure over stories with coffee on our pj-clad mornings when I came home as an adult. But this time of year, I miss your music most.

When you sat at the piano, a dust of glory shown around you. Your whole body moved behind your fingers, beauty streaming forth, praise to the God you trusted –with strenuous commitment and a whole bevy of doubt – glowing into the whole room like frankincense.

Oh, there is worship even in memory.

Remember that year you wrote that Christmas cantata from the perspective of “the least of these.” How you took to heart God’s choice to send Jesus as an infant and pushed us all to see that when we are on the bottom, we sometimes see the glory best? That was my favorite Christmas program you ever did.

This morning, I feel a bit on the bottom, and yet, you taught me that when you’re really low-down, the best thing to do is look up and give yourself over to the work that lets you shine. For me, Mama, that’s words . . . and I can only pray that when I write them well, a little of that glory dust spills out and shines up the room as your music did.

I love you, Mama. I can’t wait to see you again. Merry Christmas!

Love,

A

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This Advent Letter to Those We’ve Lost is written by Alise Chaffins. Her son Elliott was stillborn on June 4, 2014, when she was 35 weeks pregnant. Four weeks later, my wife Maile gave birth to Leo, and there has been a connection in my mind between Leo and Elliott ever since.

Here is Alise’s letter:

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My Sweet Elliott,

I miss you. Every day, every day,  every day. But there are times when that missing deepens a little bit. Times when I think of what could have been – what should have been – and I wish I could hold you again.
I said that there are times when the missing deepens, and that’s especially true of Christmas. My Instagram feed is filled with family pictures, which means lots of photographs of the babies that were born at the same time as you – little boys and girls who get to grow up and see what the world has in store for them, not stunted in infancy like you. Pictures that get to change each year, rather than just a new filter on the same dozen or so pictures I have of you.

And it’s not just the pictures on Instagram and the Facebook updates. It’s in our Christmas carols, in the nativity scenes, in the Bible passages. The story of a little boy, born thousands of years ago. And to make things worse, this baby’s birth is seldom talked about without mentioning his death as well.

Sometimes I want to ask people to stop, just for a minute, and simply enjoy the miracle of the birth. Let’s not rush Jesus to his death, but let’s just take a breath and celebrate his life. Not even how well he lived and what an amazing teacher he was, but simply that he was born. That he grew and kicked and was born. That alone should cause us to marvel.

This should be your second Christmas. Last year you would have barely been able to sit up, but this year, oh this year you would be tearing around the house with your brothers and sister, adding to the noise and commotion of our big, blended family. I say that I want to hold you again, but let’s be honest, you would be at the age when holding would be hard to come by. I can just see your little legs pumping around the living room, clambering over your siblings, trying to sort out where you fit in. I can see the little annoyances and the big affection that would come from your family.

You would probably be starting to talk. If you were like your brothers, maybe not a lot of words quite yet, but you would know me, you would know your daddy. You would say our names, and even if we were exhausted from a lack of sleep, you’d melt our hearts with those words. Mama. Dada.

I wish you were still here. Sometimes I’m tempted to “look for the bright side,” but the bright side would be you here with us. The bright side would be something completely different than what is.

Instead, I’m finding that I need to allow myself to feel grief when it happens. To allow the tears to fall when they come to my eyes. To allow myself to think about you when you come to my mind.

This Christmas, that is the gift that I can give you. The gift of remembrance.

And son, you have given me a gift as well, even though at times I don’t recognize it. Not the gift of a bright side, but the gift of darkness. The gift of permission to seek help for so many other hard things that have happened. The gift of vulnerability.

You have given me the gift of grief.

I love you, baby boy.

Your Mommy

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Alise Chaffins recently released a book called Embracing Grief: Leaning Into Loss to Find Life. She is a wife, mother, eater of soup, and defender of the Oxford comma. She writes about life and grief, and how embracing grief allows for a fuller life. You can follow her online on Facebook and Twitter. She blogs regularly at knittingsoul.com.

Previous Advent Letters to Those We’ve Lost:

Dear Mom, I Have Your Christmas Cookie Cutters by Bethany Suckrow
Sometimes It Seems Like I Am the Ghost in the Room by Rebecca Mast
Advent Letters to Those We’ve Lost

Also, 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 tries to make us laugh. The episodes are funny, sad, poignant, brave, and heartwarming. You can check out the first season of episodes HERE.