Oh, I feel the weight of that absence in your word...

2010-01-01T23:14:26.592-07:00

Oh, I feel the weight of that absence in your words. I hope Grandma Chloe continues to sled in their dreams and yours. Losing someone you adore is a horrible thing - I still have my mother but she is far away and I worry over her terribly. Sometimes I wonder how I will survive when she passes. I hope I go first. I pray that your heart gets stronger every Christmas as you make lovely new memories for your children. My thoughts are still with you, inside your head, in that space of absence. I lost my father this year (March 2009), well, now last year. It is a giant hole there now.

Hugs, Terri xoxo

I'm thinking about you, Schwes. There is a ho...

2009-12-29T08:11:47.358-07:00

I'm thinking about you, Schwes. There is a hollowness to these holidays that I, too, perceive. It's like a triple whammy: the date of Mom's death in November, her birthday in December, and then this gnawing perpetual absence of those previous holidays compared to these now.

But I also see something that maybe is less obvious to you, since you are so close to it. You are making family and tradition each new holiday (and each new day). Soon, that will overshadow the dull ache of past holidays. And I also note that those past holidays will never go away: through their passing, nothing will ever cause them to change, even if their details will start to fade away. So in that, I guess there is comfort that those past holidays will always be with you.

Lastly, I like your reference to a ghost. Guillermo del Toro's film The Devil's Backbone had a great line about what a ghost is that I would share here:

What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.

I guess I prefer to think about ghosts as emotions suspended in time, and not embodiments of trapped, dead souls. I think the interpretation of ghosts as trapped emotions provides some comfort: in many ways, it suggests that the cause of that emotion is still alive in you, and that she will forever be (thus sharing with you all of the future Christmases to come).

Comments on She Sells Seashells: Ghost Sledding

Oh, I feel the weight of that absence in your word...

I'm thinking about you, Schwes. There is a ho...