This past Saturday night we gathered with our family in the cold around our Evie’s candlelit grave.
We sang “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”.
We sang about the baby in the manger with no crib for a bed.
We missed our would-be five-year-old.
We missed our friends’ babies.
We talked with our kids about life and death, bodies and spirits.
We looked up to see candles on graves as far as the eye could see and thought about all of the ache and all of the hope.
We talked about how some of the people buried there were alive last week at this same time.
And we sang “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” one more time with a living hope of what is to come.
Come, Emmanuel, Come.
((()))
All of the ache and all of the hope. I feel like that’s such an accurate description of my own advent season this year–and really, all of life. I’m sorry that your own ache is so deep and has involved such loss. Thankful that you share Evie’s ongoing story, and remind us of just how alive hope is.
such a beautiful, hopeful hymn.
O Come thou Dayspring come & cheer,
Our spirits by thine advent here,
Dispense the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight!
Rejoice, Emmanuel has come (& is coming). Hallelujah.