We got the kids’ school pictures yesterday. We send them to the grandparents every year for Christmas: four different addresses. Our mothers, our fathers. My wife shook the pictures out of the envelope, showed them to me: N’s goofy grin, Z’s untamable hair. Three sets of photos. Three sets, not four.
My mother’s death did not leave a gaping hole in our lives. She wasn’t woven into the fabric of my everyday. Instead, my mother’s absence is a series of tiny voids: eyelet lace. One less person to tag on the photo of the kids’ Halloween costumes. One less phone call on Thanksgiving. I decorated our house this weekend with the garlands and lights and red velvet bows that she brought me for the first Christmas after N was born. I snapped a picture on my phone, and didn’t know who to send it to.
Christine Hanolsy 
Tiny voids is the perfect description of what ongoing loss is like, once you get past that initial wave of grief. I’m sorry ❤
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Your piece inspired me to keep my non-fiction short this week. I felt you really captured this difficult feeling.
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Sometimes I feel like I have to use all 750 words, and sometimes I say what I need to say in far fewer than that. I love that you felt the same way!
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I think keeping it short helps emphasize the metaphor – grief isn’t always big. One can experience it in small ways.
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For years, when I was talking to my husband about calling my mom, I added “and Daddy,” because it was so deeply part of the ritual of calling them with milestones. And every time, he’d look at me sideways, “Dad?” and it would open the wound all over again. This is exactly that. You said it beautifully. My deepest sympathies for your loss. ❤
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The way you end this is perfection. ❤
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Sending you lots of hugs and love. All of the firsts after a loss and all the moments you forget and then are immediately reminded of grief are so hard.
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‘Eyelet lace’ is so unique, what a lovely image to give the reader. This was short and perfect.
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those tiny voids and actions that you want to take (like sending a photo or making a phone call) will get you every time.
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So true.Our parents are so embedded in our thoughts, actions and prayers that there is no big crater that they leave behind, its small holes everywhere like an eyelet lace.Beautiful metaphor.
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First of all, love, this completely describes the complicated grief felt when hitting milestones. Nothing is the same, but it’s not so different that it is unrecognizable.
My only suggestion is that I think your last sentence could have stood alone as a paragraph — I think that would strike a really resonant final chord.
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Oh, that’s a good point. I didn’t really think of that. Thank you so much for reading and for your kind words.
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I liked how, in just a few words, you expressed the emotions you go through everyday from the loss of a loved one. No details on how it happened, and how you are coping with it, but just a quiet acceptance of life as it is!
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Eyelet lace is such an effective metaphor.
What is it about the holidays that have us thinking about our relationships with family?
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With a heavy heart, I love this. I like that it wasn’t such a heavy melancholy, but I light trickle of the emptiness that follows us in those brief moments after losing a parent. Well done.
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Yes, exactly, “a series of tiny voids”. That’s such a perfect way of encapsulating the sense of loss.
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Send them to me.
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(We have an extra set ready in an envelope waiting for me to address it. ❤ But I'll text you the house pic in a few.)
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“eyelet lace” is perfect.
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And something my mom would have appreciated…
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