The Empty Space

An introductory note

From Powerhouse Museum from Sydney, Australia - Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27884353.

Dear reader,

Years ago I saw a Tweet that said that at any given time 25% of us were experiencing grief over the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a job, or some other thing.

I can’t remember what the Tweeter based this statistic on - whether they had drawn it from some credible source or out of their bottom - but it stuck with me because I find it to be believable.

How many millions of people die each year? How many beloved pets pass away? How many people lose jobs? Break up or get divorced? How many lose homes or businesses? I reckon that if you put 100 people in a room then at least 25 of them will be carrying some kind of grief, whether that be hidden or acknowledged.

This time of year, that room will be decorated with Christmas bunting and resounding with carols. It’s an interesting time to be experiencing grief: We are expected to gather for work parties and family feasts, to make merry and grin at each other in bonhomie as we elbow our way through the crowds in the decorated shops or end-of-year-parties in pubs.

But what of the grief-stricken? Those of us who are confronted with a Christmas suddenly devoid of a familiar presence? Those of us who dread being asked about the whereabouts of an ex-partner or the status of a now-redundant job? Even those of us who, out of instinct, reach to pat a furry head and realise that it just isn’t there any more?

I am going into Christmas this year mourning the loss of my father, who passed away a little over a month ago, and the absence of my sister, who broke off all contact with our family in August. My mother died in 2019, which now just leaves my sister’s son, who most likely will be spending Christmas with friends, and me as remnants of our nuclear family. But, oddly enough, I don’t dread spending Christmas alone. I am exhausted from coping with a challenging year and am looking forward to quiet and rest. If I do start to find the idea of Christmas alone to be too dismal then I have people - a cousin or a friend - who would gladly include me in their Christmas day gatherings.

Lucky me that I get to make that choice! Not everyone does. Some people are longing for some respite from having to perform socially; they just want to relax into their grief. Instead they are being besieged by invitations from well-meaning folk who are determined to chivy the grief-stricken into sociability, driven by a misguided belief that grief is a problem to be solved rather than an instinctual transformation - a profound adaptation to an absence - to be undergone.

And then there are those for whom Christmas evokes a grief that is so overwhelming that any sense of festivity is unthinkable. Bookmarked on my laptop is an utterly heartbreaking (and beautifully written) letter from a mother who mourns the loss of three (three!) beloved children every Christmas.

“Losing a child is like having your heart torn out and your stomach emptied. Grief gets in the way of daylight, not to mention the nocturnal dark. Christmas is a black surround, without tinsel, while the masses are plumping up the shopping streets.” - Kathleen Keyes, writing to the editor of The Irish Times.

What do you say to that? There just aren’t the words.

But what I do have the words to do is to put together a few short posts about retreating into grief during a season automatically branded as festive. I don’t have any answers or much by way of advice, but I do want to posit a few questions. One of them is this:

Does this time of year have to be about being jolly? I’m all for collective rituals and for those of you who can and want to make merry with family and friends, I sincerely wish you joy. Go hard!

But why can’t the year’s end become a time of reckoning, or reflecting, or sense-making. And if this gives rise to grief then - yes - why can’t it be a time for that, too?

Grief embraced can provide enrichment alongside the pain. The next few posts won’t appeal to everyone. That’s fine (and you have been warned!). I’m not writing from a place of “Bah, humbug!” I just wanted to post a few thoughts for those of us who are contemplating the empty space left at our table, in our beds, in the family photographs, or in our lives this Christmas.

As I contemplate the empty spaces in my life, I’m curious as to what they’ll evoke for me.