The Longest Night

Elizabeth Halling

Every year, just before Christmas,my church holds a special evening service commemorating the longest night of the year. The service is for people who struggle with the holidays because of grief, illness, job loss – any calamity will do. It’s a humane idea, to set aside a special time for mourners during the heart of bustling Christmas preparations. This is the third Christmas since my son died, and the third Longest Night of the Year service I’ve attended.

At this year’s service the attendees were invited to light a candle and speak the name of the loss each one had suffered. Quavering voices floated softly into the stillness of the empty church: “my mother.” “Husband.” “My little boy.” Then a voice said “I lighted two candles, one for my mother who lived a long, full life, and one for my granddaughter, who was denied that right.”

Well well, I thought. Are we feeling a little hostile this evening?

While I was familiar with that woman’s anger, I was not, at that moment, ready to welcome her anger into my life. Quite the opposite. I’d gone to church that evening hoping for anonymous fellowship with other folks who couldn’t muster much Christmas cheer. I was planning to enjoy the solace of sad hymns and a good cry. It is amazing how hard it can be to achieve a good cry. A phone call, an itchy ankle, or a sudden puzzling burst of hilarity can wreck a good cry quicker than black ice wrecks a semi. 

I was annoyed to miss, like a stifled sneeze, the sense of release that I was going to get with my good cry. I tried to remind myself that this was for everybody: for the defeated, the horrified, the relieved, the doubtful, the suddenly aimless.

Grief is different for everybody. A lot of people tough it out by themselves. Others, like me, depend on the kindness of family, friends, and strangers. We want to talk about it, and we want someone to listen. We even expect that listening ear from the people who themselves are going through the same rotten experience. Usually I’m flattered when a fellow griever expects compassionate listening from me. But sometimes listening hurts. Sometimes it rankles. And sometimes I’m part of the large, indifferent world that just doesn’t have time or space for somebody else’s pain.

After the church service was over, the attendees gathered in the social hall for cookies and decaf. A good friend of my mother’s who had lost her husband the summer before sat alone on the couch. I sat down next to her and asked how she was going to spend Christmas. “With you, actually,” she said. “Your mother invited me to her house.” 

“Oh, really? How nice.”

“Yes.” She regarded me with satisfaction. “You know, for more than 50 years I’ve been spending Christmases with my husband’s family. So now for the first time I get to choose where to spend it. It’s almost like I’m going to spend it –”Her voice cracked. “Well, I get to spend it with my own family.”

I put my hand on her hand, and both of us started to cry. 

Elizabeth Halling is a freelance writer and mother of two. She lives in Overland Park, Kansas, and is currently working on a memoir.