Sewing up Wounds: on holidays, grief, and art

This time of year, I find myself in awe at all people can carry. The holiday season can be just as much bitter as it is sweet. It’s hard to “carry on” with empty chairs, card-game vacancies, and missing laughter that used to fill a room. If you’ve known loss, you know just what I mean.

Grief changes form over time. It ebbs and flows from that deep ache, to those stinging moments of recall, to cathartic tears and even joyous laughter while sharing old stories. I have to believe it’s all our best attempt to honor and carry the legacies of those we’ve loved and lost. And that’s why we must, as hard as it is at times, carry on.

I also have to believe that our own experiences of grief soften us and connect us to one another in deeper ways. After all, there is not one person on this planet (and yes, I’m even talking about your staunchest political rival) who hasn’t experienced loss, who doesn’t know the ache of the absence of a loved one. Grief connects us all at the most vulnerable part of our soul, if we’ll allow it.

I watched Andrew Garfield on the Late Night Show recently describe grief as unexpressed love. That we never have enough time with our loved ones, no matter if they live to 15 or 99. I think this is true. I think it’s also true, like he later mentions, that art is a way of continuing to express our grief in ways that leave the world better that we found it. “Sewing up wounds,” he said.

Sewing up wounds. Wow. Here’s the beautiful thing- we all have the ability to do this. We are all artists in some fashion, trying our best to stitch up those wounds when they reopen. Around the holidays, I often find mine fresh and open as the day they first happened.

The ways in which we share our unique gifts sews up wounds. When my brother creates a gorgeous new song, it sews up wounds. When my cousin Laura Beth shares a special memory about her mom, my Aunt Elaine… sews up wounds. When my Aunt Teresa shares an old story about my uncle Mark during his teaching days… sews up wounds. When my sister or my moms laugh reminds me of my aunt Susan… sews up wounds. Seeing my grandpa hold my newborn son… sews up wounds.

Here’s the thing- if you’ve had stitches, you know they hurt. When I see my grandpa hold our baby boy, it’s like the wound is opening as fast as it’s trying to close. I don’t have the answer here; maybe it’s about being present to it all. Loss hurts, but I guess growth hurts too. Stitching up a wound hurts on its way to healing. Lean in. Feel it. It’s already happening, anyway.

We’re all artists. We all have the power- with our words, our actions, and our movements in the world- to sew up one another’s wounds. As Ram Dass once succinctly put it, “At the end of the day, we’re all just walking each other home.”

When we express our love, our memories, our continual deep connections to those we’ve lost, it connects us to one another. We walk each other home. Our walking helps us combat that lie grief says that you “should’ve done this” or “could’ve said that.” No, you’re doing it now. You’re saying it now. Lean in. The stitching hurts, but you’re doing the work of healing. And we’re all better for it.

“Grief is love not wanting to let go” — Earl A. Grollman