(Ed. note – I wrote the first draft of this column in 1991, while reflecting on the death of my younger brother, who died at the age of 20. It won the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists’ “Best Personal Column” award in 1992.)
By Viv Sade for Buscovoice.com
The other day in a department store in Fort Wayne, I was making a purchase and noticed that the cashier looked familiar. I realized that I knew her, although I had not seen her for some time.
But something was different. She looked older. Her shoulders sagged. She looked forlorn. This was not the same perky and talkative woman I had known in the past.
As she rang up my purchases and bagged my items, she never looked up. When she finally did – as a courtesy – she smiled at me absently and went back to her job. A cold chill of sadness wrapped around me, tightening the muscles in my throat. Then I remembered – she had lost her young 20-year-old son earlier this year to complications of diabetes. He had been the same age as my youngest son.
She realized who I was when she looked up the second time and suddenly smiled. “Viv!” she exclaimed.
She came around the counter and gave me a big hug and I said, “How are you?” before realizing how lame that sounded. How could she be? She had lost her child.
Oh god. I bit my tongue.
But she smiled valiantly, although it never reached her eyes. “I’m doing okay,” she said and we looked deep into one another ’s eyes.
“Are you?” I asked.
“Well, you know…” she said, her voice trailing off.
No, I don’t know. I can’t even pretend to know. Please God, don’t ever let me know that kind of pain.
“Hey,” she said suddenly,”Remember that column you wrote a long time ago about an empty chair during the holidays? Could you get me a copy of that?”
“Yes, I will, “I said. It’s the least I can do.
She smiled as I gathered my purchases and prepared to leave. I smiled back. There was nothing to say.
The sadness in her eyes and at the corners of her upturned mouth broke my heart.
So, here it is, Teri, for you and in memory of your loving son, Wally.
May your heart be less heavy with each year that passes and may you be comforted by each and every excruciatingly wonderful memory of your son.
The Empty Chair
The holidays – time once again to get crushed beneath crass commercialization and overthrown by a tidal wave of high interest plastic. It’s all too easy to lose sight of the moment in the ensuing mayhem.During the holidays, people adopt a negative “Bah humbug,” attitude that becomes almost commonplace.
But I’ve discovered a trick for keeping Christmas in your heart. Here’s how it works:
First, visualize your family and loved ones gathered together for the holidays. All of you are seated around a table; there is plenty of good food, high spirits and much merry-making.
Now … imagine this Christmas that one chair is empty. The person who has, for years, occupied that chair, won’t be sitting down to Christmas dinner with the rest of the family … ever.
A breath-taking thought, but chances are, at some point in your life, there will be an empty chair at a family gathering.
Look around. For many families it’s happening this Christmas.
The first holiday after the death of a loved one is gut-wrenching, but the first Christmas is unbearable. The vacant place setting is all too obvious. Everyone tries to talk around it, strives to ignore it and, in vain, tries to force some gaiety into the holiday rituals.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, the warm glow of family and the circle of love around your heart. The loss of a family member extinguishes the glow and numbs the circle – but amazingly, only temporarily.
Maybe, in two or three years, someone will recount a humorous story about the loved one who is now gone. And, maybe, everyone will laugh softly, their smiles edged with tears.
And maybe, four or five years down the road, the photo album will be dusted off and everyone will pass it around, laughing, reminiscing and telling wonderful stories that bring comfort on the wings of memories that will never die. And maybe that year, for the first time, the tears will not spill over the rims of your eyes and run unchecked down the sides of your face, but will only blur your vision for a second or two.
And in ten years, although the name is rarely mentioned, although an outsider would never guess that someone is missing, and although optimism and good cheer once again pervade the atmosphere – symbolically, the chair remains empty.
The pain will ebb, but will never disappear. Lives, people are forever changed.
It becomes easier – with the excruciating pain of loss - to cherish the closeness of family, to never take the warmth of Christmas for granted and to never accept the eloquence of loved ones around a dinner table a a “given.”
Because now, you know firsthand, how it can all change in the blink of an eye.
And, if you are fortunate enough to never have experienced an empty chair, then you certainly have something to be thankful for this Christmas.
And, if this year, in your house, there is an empty chair, may you be somewhat comforted by the knowledge that others care, and by the promise that the glow of Christmas will return … perhaps another time, another year.
Charles E. Childs, 88, a former resident of Gaston and widely acquainted Gaston businessman and community leader, passed away at 4:15 a. m. on Thursday, June 10, 2010, at the St. Anne Home in Fort Wayne. He had been in decliing health for some time, and had been a resident there since December 2008.
