The Name of Hope

Grief becomes more real at Christmastime. As the years roll by, sometimes we tuck away thoughts of those we’ve loved and lost like photographs in an album, but during the holidays it becomes nearly impossible to keep the cover closed. The minutia of life takes on a heightened glow, each piece a vestige of what life used to be. December brings the first fall of snow, silver-wrapped presents, hot cocoa, and ornaments. There are festive songs in the stores, lights on the bushes, evergreen branches in the windows.  Every wish of good cheer is inexplicably bound up in the “better days.” All it might take are the opening notes of Silent Night, and the photo album bursts opens and memories change from monochrome to color.  At Christmastime, it feels nearly impossible to pretend that we haven’t lost.  A couple years ago, I wrote a blog post called Loving and Losing about a little house on a bending road in West Virginia. My Uncle Gary and Aunt Dolly lived there. They weren’t really my uncle and aunt, not really anything by blood to me, but they loved me and my sisters like we belonged to them.  I have vivid memories of […]

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