Melancholy

From Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark:  quoted in January 1, 2020 Christian Century, p. 21.

"Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him."

    After sailing through Advent and into Christmas with few episodes of evident grief New Year's has been melancholy for me.  Buechner's quote above resonated with me. "Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness,..."

    Thinking about that quote practically, in the presence of absence in the land of grief, I feel an emptiness, unease and incompleteness in my bereavement. There is something poignant about beginning another new year, and especially a new decade, that Joanne will not experience. It feels so wrong.  Joanne could remember every decade from the '30's to the teens but she will not know the '20's. 
        Our granddaughters at 10 and 7 are so clearly showing their characters and personalities. Why isn't Joanne physically present for them?  She took such delight in them and they in her.
       Yes, you can see I have the melancholies, it's not fatal but it's no fun either.

Takk for alt,

Al