“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken
“Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”, Les Misérables
There’s a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables.”
These words are from one of my favorite songs in Les Misérables. I think of them often, especially around the holidays. Last year, at our family Thanksgiving, the first significant holiday after my sister’s death, we tried to figure out the seating arrangement. Do we sit in the same places? Do we leave her empty chair where it always was? Or do we switch everything up and remove the chair even if the elephant remains behind?
Many of you are joining us this year with empty chairs at the table, and I’m so deeply sorry. It is hard, painful, everything you don’t want it to be, yet it is. Like my family, you will figure out how to walk it and make it through. The table is forever altered, yet it still anchors us with sweet memories and love that empty chairs cannot diminish.
I woke up today with this thought: I’m tired of grieving. Perhaps it’s the gloomy weather the past two days. Maybe it’s the culmination of preaching a month-long sermon series on death. Perhaps all the collective grief from the past couple of years feels trapped in my bones. Maybe it is the grief over the loss of a friendship and possibilities. Grief and loss are not just about the death of a person. It can be the loss of dreams, opportunities, relationships, and even a sense of control. There are situations, people, and outcomes we have no control over, yet we hold onto them with a death grip. I’m tired of that kind of grieving, too. The only antidote I know is gratitude.
I opened Facebook this morning to this image from a friend, and it reminded me of what I believe on my good days and what I’ve preached at funerals and to my congregation. Grief and gratitude can be held together. It is one more mystery in life where dichotomies fail, where “both/and” reign over “either/or.” I don’t want to live in despair, and I don’t want to live with fake positivity. I want a compassionate heart, fluid and soft, tried and true, one that still beats with hope without pretending life isn’t sometimes hard.
I’ll keep naming my grief, and I’ll keep naming my gratitude. I had someone or something in life so beautiful, meaningful, life-giving, and worthy of grieving. I would rather have the grief than not to have had them at all.
Last year it took everything for me to walk into my parents’ house for that first Thanksgiving without Ang. But I did. We all did. And we did it at Christmas, for birthdays, and a big graduation. We laugh, and we cry. We share sweet memories and make new ones she’d be proud of. There is a little bit of grief and gratitude served up each time we gather at the table. I’ve learned the anticipation of the day holds more pain than the day itself.
For those with empty chairs at your Thanksgiving table, whether for the first time or longer, I see you. I think that is all I really want you to know. I see you, and I love you.
I began with lyrics, and I’ll end with more from another favorite song, “You’re Gonne Be OK.”
“Just take one step closer
Brian and Jenn Johnson
Put one foot in front of the other
You’ll get through this
Just follow the light in the darkness
You’re gonna be ok”
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