The Longest Night

It’s become an unfortunate trend. The North Pole tilts away from the sun and the days grow dark and cold, and someone in my family lands in the hospital. On one of these bleak winter days several years ago, I stood in front of a hospital elevator, waiting. It was only 4:00, but the glass walls of the lobby showed the sun already slipping down a sodden sky.

In stark contrast, a floor-to-ceiling Christmas tree just inside the glass flashed its lights, as if calling me to cheer.

The car-position indicator showed the elevator had paused above me on the seventh floor. That’s when I noticed a tripod set between the elevator and the tree. It held a placard decorated with symbols of the season—evergreen branches, holly, pinecones and candles.

Longest Night of the Year Vigil, it said. Come together to light the dark.

Held in the hospital chapel, the vigil would be a time to remember loved ones who had passed and to honor those fighting for health.

I didn’t go to the chapel on that long night. Instead, I stood by a hospital bed, cooling a feverish forehead and ruminating. I thought about the winter solstice, also known as the hibernal solstice, when, like bears, it’s time to retreat to a den.

I thought about the jolt of walking from the dimly lit ICU, where the monitors blink to the glare of the lobby where Christmas lights glitter. I thought about how the happiest time of the year can also be the saddest. And I thought about the people in the chapel trying to find their way.

I hoped their darkness would be acknowledged, not obliterated and that the candlelight would be gentle, not glaring, not, as Emily Dickinson says, “too bright for our infirm delight.”

In a hibernal season, too much light too soon can blind. So can too many platitudes, too much positivity.

It’s kinder, as Dickinson says, to dazzle gradually.