Every holiday that occurs after I lost my brother I am faced with so much emotion. One issue that I am always confronted with during a holiday is the “empty chair.” How do we deal with his empty spot at the family table? This empty spot always appears to be more blatant during a holiday. Dealing with issues such as, taking a head count for setting the table, having to subtract one from the commonly known number, the empty space where my brother sat, everyone filling the air with unnecessary chatter to hide the reality of my brother being gone. Sometimes I wish we chose to do nothing for all the holidays, I do not need reminders he is gone, I deal with it everyday.
Tags: Missing Space
There is a Civil War song called “The Vacant Chair,” describing the anguish of a missed loved one at the dinner table who died in the war. This was such a common occurence that the song was very popular, in part because it allowed people to share a common bond of grief.
The song was published by a Henry S. Washburn after hearing a of brave Massachusetts soldier who postponed his furlough to rescue his woulded fellow soldiers, and was shot and killed during the battle.
The first lines go like this:
We shall meet, but we shall miss him,
There will be one vacant chair
We shall linger to caress him,
As we breath our evening prayer.
When a year ago we gathered
Joy was in his mild blue eye
But a golden cord is severed,
And our hopes in ruin lie.
We shall meet, but we shall miss him,
There will be one vacant chair
We shall linger to caress him,
As we breath our evening prayer
I hope these lyrics in some way comfort you. I think the fact you grieve for him during holidays shows how truly wonderful your brother was and how blessed you are that he was - and is - a big part of your life.