All around me, the people I love are struggling. I see my niece and nephew, teenagers without a dad. I had a dad, but he wasn’t there for me, and when I was a teenager, I especially needed the love, support, affirmation, and validation of a dad. My niece and nephew don’t have a dad, because their dad was my brother, and my brother is gone. Who do they have in their season of need? Who do they have to help them navigate these teenage years?
I get so caught up in my own world that I don’t even notice this struggle they have, yet, if I take a moment to be there for them, to be with them, I see their need. My heart weeps for the gaping void that is the absence of my brother, their father, their dad. They need a dad.
And what of my own children? Their dad is not present, and is lost in his own reality that I simply cannot comprehend. My love is there to be a dad for them. My beautiful man. We are a heavy load, and stepping into a broken family, trying to pull the pieces together amidst the insanity that is our situation is overwhelming. Navigating the emotions and perceptions and differences in opinion is so very difficult. Sometimes it seems like it’s too hard and too painful to try to continue, but if we can step back and take a deep breath for a moment, we might see the rainbow and the sunshine and realize that we are strong enough to prevail, and that love will find a way.
All around me, the people I love are struggling. I see families in which the parents are exhausted and consumed by the demands of very young children coupled with the demands of making a living and staying afloat, simply trying to make ends meet. Thresholds are short, emotions flare. The love is there, somewhere, but it’s nigh on impossible to carve out together time in which to nourish and replenish and edify one another. Who do they have besides each other in their season of need? Where can they draw strength to navigate these toddler years?
I get so caught up in my own world that I overlook this struggle they have, yet, if I take a moment to step out of my own chaos, I see their need. My heart weeps for the growing void in their marriage. They need rest.
We gather together, each of us holding our own expectations for this family time, each of us hoping we will be nourished and that this time will help draw us out of the dark places where we find ourselves stuck. And if we don’t get out of our own heads to see the struggles all around us, we are quickly overwhelmed and nearly crushed with despair. But if we do find a way to look beyond our own suffering, to see that we aren’t alone, we can put our own troubles into perspective, and suddenly they don’t loom so large.
When we do this, and talk with each other, we reminisce about the good times when we’d gather. We were younger, the collective stress seemed smaller, or at least different. We laughed and sang and played and ate and painted and played and sang and laughed and ate. We had so much fun. Life for all of us is different now, but we try to step away for at least a moment, and stay up late to play board games, allowing the kids to mill around us, trying to recapture at least a glimpse of the way things used to be.
