I love Annie Dillard’s writing. Her book “The Abundance,” is a collection of some of her most powerful, most lovely essays. Reading through it again today, I came across this line I had forgotten, “𝐴𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑤𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑛𝑜 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑡.”
It arrested me anew. It felt like she had reached into my soul and named the very reason I write. It’s a reason I knew long before I ever saw it on the page, but not one I’m sure I could have articulated as succinctly.
I write to make sense of what happens.
I write to keep what matters from slipping away.
A chronicle.
A compass.
A compendium for both the trials and the beauties that shape a life.
Perhaps that’s why this season hits me harder than others. Thanksgiving was always around Daddy’s birthday, and the holiday still bears the imprint of his absence. And then there’s our sweet Jimmy, whose absence remains as palpable as breath, the way his memory rises up in unexpected ways, sometimes sharp, sometimes soft, but always near.
Grief has its own calendar and its own tides. Anniversaries and old songs and half-forgotten details flare without warning, arriving with a kind of beauty-filled ache.
Beauty has always moved me, sometimes more than my heart knows how to carry.
“𝐴 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑗𝑜𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟,” Keats wrote, and I feel that.
For me, beauty is visceral and not easily overlooked. It awakens that deep longing C.S. Lewis wrote about, the one whose origin he could never quite name, the longing that feels like home and homesickness at the same time.
Beauty doesn’t just soothe; it stirs. It disrupts. It makes room for wonder even in hearts that feel stretched thin. Sometimes the tears come, not only because of what is gone, but because, somehow, wonder still remains.
It’s a rich juxtaposition, this mingling of ache and awe.
I heard a song today with lyrics that left me sobbing over my morning coffee:
𝑆𝑜 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑐𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑒
𝑆𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑠
𝐺𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒
𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑦
𝐷𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑠𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒
𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒
𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
‘𝐶𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑡 𝑘𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛’𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑓 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔
𝑆𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑏𝑖𝑔 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠
𝑀𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑏𝑖𝑔 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠.
Maybe that’s the task, especially in times like these:
to slow down,
to take it all in,
to let beauty tear the heart a little wider,
to refuse to lose what can still be named,
to make a big deal of the little things, understanding that they were never really little at all.
Writing is how I make sense of the things I carry.
It’s how I store them up for safekeeping
It’s how I refuse to let them be lost.
And for every one of you who have taken the time to read my words, or have found your own stories within mine, I am honored to walk this winding road of beauty and ache alongside you.
As we move through this season with all its memories, its joys, and its tender places, may Thanksgiving remind us of the beauty that abounds among the things we wish we could keep forever, but find ourselves learning, again and again, to let go.
To relinquish, after all, is not to lose, but to cherish what cannot be taken.
With so much love to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving.