The Unspoken Challenge Of The Holidays

The process of writing a blog has no rhyme or reason.  Some weeks I’ll have experiences or conversations and I know I’m going to write about them.  Some weeks, I feel inspired to use someone else’s insights as a springboard for my own.  Still other weeks, I know what I “should” write about, but I don’t want to because I don’t feel up to the task.  I don’t feel up to the task because the writing demands that I be honest and sometimes being honest is just too difficult.  This is one of those weeks.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll recall that for Thanksgiving I wrote about George, an eighty-five year old whose memorial I had officiated.  The warmth of the stories told about him reminded me that the way we honor the dead is by choosing to be for others what the departed had been for us.  While I believe this, I wonder if maybe it’s an easy truth to embrace because George was an old man when he died.

A few days ago, Liz, a friend with whom I’d lost contact, called to tell me that her thirty-year-old nephew, Tyler, had died in his sleep the day after Thanksgiving.  His memorial is this coming Sunday and she asked if I’d officiate it.

His family is devastated beyond words.  Too sudden.  Too soon.  So senseless.  And as Liz asked, “Why do these tragedies happen at the holidays?”  There’s no answer, of course, to that question.  Unlike the classic movie, Death never takes a holiday.

Liz lamented that Tyler’s life was a “promise cut short.”  Yes, there was more for him to see, to do and to become.  But, he lived life on his own terms, with integrity and love.  And for that, it could be said he lived a promise fulfilled, short though he lived.

But still, to memorialize Tyler on the sixth day of the Festival of Lights, four days before Christmas, calls into question the trustworthiness of all those lights and hope and merriment.

Is it too much of a cliché to write that joy doesn’t negate sadness?  That the candles don’t dispel the dark, they illuminate it?  With all the holiday parties and shopping specials, we easily can forget that these end-of-year holidays are actually meant to challenge us and not just delight us.

And so I’m left with the question I posed to you in my Thanksgiving post: “If you knew you were going to die one year from today, what would you do and how would you want to be remembered?” 

No matter how short a life, answering and living this question is worthy of our best. – of our trusting and celebrating the light.