News from Jules | 12.25.2023 | Be the Light
It wasn’t even dinner time yet and there were already stars twinkling across the vast, black sky. I gripped the wheel of the giant loaner Land Rover and scanned the six-lane highway as I listened for directions from Google Maps, and kept a close eye on the clock. I didn’t really know how to drive that car and I definitely didn’t know where I was going. Luckily most of the traffic was inbound to the city, not out to the Denver International Airport.
With such a short layover, I knew every minute was precious.
“Wait you’re in Denver right now? I’m flying through later today from San Diego to Anchorage.”
“What time?!! Just 30 minute drive. Text me as soon as you land.”
“Oh gosh that’s so far, it’s okay you don’t have to come.”
But, I knew. It was not okay. She was not okay.
That was a year ago, just after Thanksgiving while I was recuperating in Denver, Colo., and by luck of intuition, I texted one of my best friends to say hi. I quickly learned that she was not at home in Alaska and had completely skipped Thanksgiving because she had been in a San Diego hospital for nearly two weeks after her Dad was life-flighted there with a mysterious illness and almost died.
Everything is okay now. But back then, it was as close to a dark night of the soul as one can get. “When everything is lost, and all seems darkness,” wrote Joseph Campbell. I knew all too well, having just lived through one myself.
After carefully parking the huge vehicle in the lot, I rushed into the terminal and followed the signs to security. I was surprised by how quickly I could bob and weave through the crowds considering how painful it was to hobble the mile to Arrivals just a couple of weeks before.
After I came around a corner into the open atrium filled with enormous Christmas trees and decorations, I spotted the pub next to the security gate where we agreed to meet during her two-hour layover. This was not the first time we’d spontaneously made an airport connection, seizing any chance we got to see each other over the years, but this was different.
There she was, wearing jeans, a thick grey turtle-neck sweater, and an unseasonably light olive jacket—the awkward mix for Alaskan and Southern California climates in a hastily packed suitcase. From afar, she looked surprisingly put together, but as I got close enough to swoop her into a hug, I noticed the large streak of white hair pulled back into a ponytail.
Had that been there before? I wondered.
We held it together long enough to find a table near a corner, stash coats and luggage on the chairs, squeeze into the booth next to each other, and politely order. A coke for her, a half-pint pilsner for me.
Once I turned to face her, I could see: She was a wreck.
Swollen red eyes, pale skin, dark circles under her eyes, drooped shoulders, shaky hands. I had never seen her this way.
Of course. Due to our long-distance friendship of 20 years, I had only been around for a few of the hard days, such as visiting while her husband was deployed in Afghanistan, but not for her harder days, for instance, the births of her four children. But, this was the hardest.
This is what happens while diligently staked out at the hospital, sleeping in a chair, eating leftover apple sauce packets, Googling everything the doctor says, and setting timers to remind the overworked staff about taking vitals, giving meds, and sharing results. Not knowing if a loved one is going to live or die.
I reached over to hold her hand and quietly said, “Tell me all about it.”
And so she opened up.
Like a door to her soul, I too felt the fear, the uncertainty, the anguish, and the despair of the darkness. Tears streamed down my face too as I pulled her close into my fuzzy yellow fleece—a gift when I visited her in Alaska the year before—and smoothed the curly hairs of that white streak from her forehead to her crown.
She knew I knew.
Perhaps this is why through some Christmas miracle, we both happened to be in the same place in the world for a couple of hours, on that dark, early winter night.
It felt strange to be the one reassuring her that everything was okay and that everything was probably, eventually going to be fine. I have always been the one questioning and challenging the Universe. She was the one with the unwaivering faith. Until now.
She wanted to know: How could the God who she so devotedly trusted and abided not just allow, but create, such suffering?
I didn’t know.
This darkness, this emptiness, this absence of meaning, reminded me of a long phone conversation we’d had a decade before. It was around the same time of year following Thanksgiving during the ramp up to Christmas. Bemoaning the onslaught of baking, shopping, wrapping, ordering, shipping, cleaning, hosting, traveling and more, we didn’t feel cheerful, happy, or positive. Definitely not magical.
“I just can’t get into the Holiday Spirit!”
“Me either!” she replied.
The next morning, in a flash of inspiration, while opening the first little window of my 99 cent Advent Calendar from Trader Joe’s, I realized the perfect Christmas gift: What if I could give her the Holiday Spirit?
And so, for the next 25 days of December 2013 I was on the lookout for all things festive, including Mr. and Mrs. Claus, that I could write a blog post about and then email the link to her every day. Read the Advent Series here*.
As I chronicled each day’s discovery, I slowly noticed how I was catching the Holiday Spirit myself.
Be the love.
Be the light.
I started to see past the red and green and blue and gold and realize what the Holidays are actually about. It sure wasn’t about enduring the modern “Holidaze”—an overextended, stress-filled marathon of obligations with a huge, fake smile. But this smorgasbord of traditions—sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and feelings—gave us something to look forward to and to lift our spirits.
It’s about getting through what could easily be a dark night of the soul, together.
Hence, this season of light.
“We light the candles not to be out of the darkness, but to kindle our hope.”
Or as Carl Jung said, “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.”
So, when my best friend let the tears cascade down her face while clutching my hand in that leather booth at a packed airport pub next to the security gate in her darkest, most faithless moment, I felt so immensely blessed to be there beside her.
This. This was the true Holiday Spirit.
See photos going way back to 2002 on Instagram.
The minutes flew by, and before I’d even finished my half-pint of beer, we needed to rush to pay the bill and get her to the connecting flight gate. While putting on our coats and walking to the front of the security line, we tried to squeeze in a few minutes of general life updates.
Once she got to the front of the line and needed to pass through, we snapped a selfie, of course, and then I pulled her in for another extra-long hug goodbye. Prolonging the parting, she slowly took steps up to the security conveyor belt while still asking questions about what I was doing for Christmas and where I’d land afterward.
“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug.
“Does that worry you?”
“Oh no. I don’t worry. You’ll land on your feet. You always do.”
There it was.
Her light.
Shining right back at me.
May you be the light today.
Love,
Jules
*If you read my first blog series in one of my first blogs, feel free to giggle alongside me at any poor grammar, wrongly formatted photos, or broken links that I’ve left “as is” as a time capsule, like the Ghost of my Creative Past.