I never like starting a piece with a quote. It feels too simplistic and yellow-journlismesque. But here goes:

“Sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.” This comes from the famous incident when Itzhak Perlman, the polio-stricken, world-class violinist, who during a performance at Lincoln Center, snapped a string at the beginning of a concerto. Rather than stop and move awkwardly backstage to replace the string or the violin, he simply nodded to the conductor to continue, then immediately adjusted his playing on just three strings, not missing a note. The quote had as much to do with his own life as it did that singular performance.

It seems to me that no matter how much we make the best of those holidays which follow a significant loss, the loss is still present; it has to be. To pretend everything is normal, or worse, that annoying pandemic-born phrase, “the new normal,” is a foolhardy act. No, it’s not normal. There’s a hole in the world right in the middle of the gift-giving, the conversations, the Christmas dinner–especially the dinner. We adjust, of course, we work the best we can off of the three strings left, everyone shifting slightly to accommodate the newly-needed positioning. But it certainly can be the elephant in the room.

My mom died in April, and it wasn’t exactly expected. Certainly at nearly ninety-two with already compromised health, I would not call her passing a shock, but when I left for the Netherlands a week earlier, she was fine, even jovial. While gone we bought cheese, and my intention was to share it with Mom. But she died just two days after we returned. Dad’s death was much more anticipated, and at the risk of sounding cold (Merry Christmas Everyone!–nice topic for today, don’t you think?), his death was almost immediately accepted. He had declined so far over the course of the previous two years, and in the one brief moment of lucidity he had while I was present, he told me he supposed he only had a few days left–said it as a matter of fact, an acknowledgement of something he almost welcomed. But Mom had no intention of going anywhere yet.

So we adjust more now than we did back then, though in both cases, the change was noticeable. Dad’s also because his passing was just two months before Christmas.

But here’s what I noticed: I’m paying way more attention these days to those that are here. Hanging onto the conversation longer, thinking more about the gifts I give–are they personal enough and not some last minute purchase to “get it done.” I’m listening more this year–to my son, to my siblings–I’m aware of the spices in the dressing, the timing of the dessert. It’s as if those of us who remain have made the music by filling up the empty spaces with what love we have to give, no longer assuming any of the rest of us will be here next year.

Perhaps I am more focused. The more loved ones exit, the closer attention I pay to those still here in the play, on this stage. Oddly, I can nearly pinpoint the exact moment my adult life began, and someone gave me a present this Christmas which reminded me of that time back then, and two essential truths emerged: That really happened, and I’m still here. We waste so much time not talking to others; we have mastered the art of euphemism and avoidance. We figure that we have time to figure things out, plenty of time to tell them what we’re feeling. And then often without warning they’re gone. So why not turn to those who are left and say, “Listen, I need to tell you what you mean to me…” Being able to still do so just might be our departed loved one’s greatest gift to us. We don’t have everyone we started out with, but we have those who are left, and we have the truth of us in each other’s lives.

I believe the holidays which follow the passing of a loved one, while difficult, just might be the most honest, the most open and transparent. I missed Mom today, and always I miss my father, but this year too I missed, again, Letty, Fr Dan, Dave, and so many more who left in the last sixteen months, left without me taking the time to say what I would have said had I known I’d never get the chance to say anything. No more. That’s their gift to us, right there. This year instead of their absence being only sad, it is also motivating. It’s like they’re still in the shadows silently telling me to love, to just love. And like Virgil’s personified Death, they twitch my ear and whisper, “Live. Live now…I am coming.”

Merry Christmas.