The Longest Night time: grief and the winter solstice

The winter solstice is upon us. Right here within the Northern Hemisphere, it is the 24-hour interval with the fewest hours of daylight all yr. It is generally known as the ‘longest evening of the yr’, which is both the right metaphor for grief and/or the right title for an early-aught emo album.

Although I’m somebody deeply impacted by the darkness of the winter [she wrote, flicking on her S.A.D. lamp], there’s something I’ve lengthy discovered comforting concerning the concept of leaning into the winter solstice. One thing is reassuring about celebrating the day when the planet appears most aligned with loss of life, grief, and loss, all of the whereas figuring out that longer days and shorter nights lie forward.

In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo famously wrote, “Even the darkest evening will finish and the solar will rise”. What he would not point out is that it’s going to get darkish once more. Even the brightest day will finish and the solar will set, in any case. Although maybe that sounds miserable, I truly discover an unimaginable consolation in it. We have been by no means promised a life that might be all mild or all darkness. It has all the time been days and nights, joys and pains, calm and chaos, progress and decay. The one fixed is that the states are ever-changing, be it the darkness, the climate, the seasons, our our bodies, or our feelings.

Nicely, that and that huge field shops will insist on placing their vacation decorations out earlier every year.

On the longest evening of the yr, in a season that finds you grieving, in a world that’s stuffed with immense struggling and ache, it’s bizarre to be surrounded by twinkle-lights, is not it? The dissonance can really feel too nice. Folks we love are useless. People are struggling. What proper do individuals have to hold twinkle-lights and be merry? What does it imply for us to hold twinkle-lights and be merry?

On the identical time, we by no means ask what proper the solar has to rise every morning. We all know the evening and day dwell aspect by aspect, doing their dance throughout every twenty-four span. They transfer up and down, throughout every season, longer and shorter, waxing and waning.

We have rambled greater than sufficient about holidays and grief. We’ve dozens of articles about it on WYG. I am going to spare you extra musings and as an alternative simply ship one hope your method: you could lean into tonight’s lengthy evening. Wrap it round your shoulders like a blanket, keep open to the daybreak, recognize the twinkle-lights in case you can. And present your self some kindness and compassion if you cannot.

It is not straightforward. It is okay if you cannot.

Maybe that’s the best possible and absolute worst factor about grief on the holidays – it might not go the best way you hoped or deliberate, however that is okay . . . the solar will hold rising, the darkness will hold falling, and it’ll come again round subsequent yr so that you can attempt it once more.

December 22, 2023