Christmas Reflections from Afar - circa 2016

Dear Mom,

Well, we celebrated another Christmas a couple days ago.  

Amidst the joy and laughter of sharing gifts there was a silent heaviness this year with the realization that this was number nine - that nine out of the last ten Christmas’s have been spent away.  It was a heaviness caused by the gravity of the recognition that our children's experience of Christmas involves your participation through a tiny window on a computer instead of in your arms or around your table.

This may have been the last Christmas that carried the magic of Santa.  We tried so hard this year to subtly communicate that he is not real.  At one point they even accepted it.  However, their stubborn faith eventually won out.  Despite being convinced that the gifts are actually from us, they still held onto the conviction that Santa must have some part in their delivery.  

And it hit me this week, that through all these years, we didn’t get to share the enchantment of even one of those early childhood Christmas morning’s together.

You know what I’m talking about because you did the same thing 32 years ago; leaving your family in tears at an airport as you boarded an airplane to spend my childhood half a world away trying to give your light to a story larger than yourself.  Now the distance that rests between us is reminding me of how I am a product of those very same sacrifices.  So often my attention has rested on the blessings of our experience.  The “hundredfold” gain that we have already received.  But today the gravity of the cost and loss is my shadow, and I’m reminded that our life overseas has meant that the elation of every hello is haunted by an inevitable goodbye.  

All of this has made me experience the vertigo of impermanence today.  It has reminded me of the more ultimate distance that waits to embrace all of us and carry us into the impending unity of the age to come.  I guess I am wishing today that the life of resurrection both for today and someday didn’t have to pass through so much loss.  And maybe… I am writing all of this because the silhouette of our own departure from Rwanda has also just begun arriving at the periphery of our hearts.  How does one leave the people and places that one has given themselves so fully to without also leaving part of oneself? 

We are missing you guys.  We are not homesick, but rather uncomfortably aware of the space between us; and wishing we could have been in those family pictures that were posted on Facebook.  Despite our distance and sometimes sporadic communication we love you guys and are thankful for you.    We couldn’t be here without you and one day it will all be made up.  

Love, 

C,J,A, & C