First Christmas Card without You
I imagine the hurdle of writing our Christmas letter and selecting photos for our Christmas card will forever be a dilemma. How do we acknowledge we are forever a family of four with one child on earth and one child in heaven? Despite the fact that we look like a family of three?
Choosing a Family Photo
Given that Levi passed on February 19th, this year I had photos to choose from that included Levi living and the four of us as a family. Should I pick one of those? Or the last image of the four of us, so sacredly taken by the Issac Initiative, just hours before Levi's death?
By December, it had been 10 months since Levi's death. Our life as a family had been through a tsunami of change. Images with Levi didn't express our current experience. And yet they did...
How do we honestly express our grief in a Christmas card? These cards have come to epitomize the “perfect American life.” Where was the space for death, particularly the death of a child?
I wrestled with these questions for weeks. Never being able to select a handful of photos that could collectively say “our 2017” experience. Never being able to start the “year in review” letter.
Woven into these questions was the approaching arrival of what would have been Levi's 8th birthday, soon to be followed by Christmas. Our grief was pressing through the surface of our hearts, threatening to burst into a thousand pieces.
The Empty Chair
One day I remembered a photo we had taken at the end of a family photo shoot with our friends at SummerStreet Photography. We purposefully scheduled annual family photos. The kind that allowed our love for one another to radiate.
In 2015 I brought along an old handmade rocking chair I had enjoyed as a child. It was a chair that held a lot of sentimental value and would be easy for Levi to sit in.
At the very end of the photoshoot as we were packing up, I asked our photographer if she would take a picture of the chair on it's own. It was an unusual request, an empty child-size rocking chair in the middle of a grassy park surrounded by the fallen leaves of autumn.
It was a purposeful request. For I knew someday I would need this image. Someday, this chair would be forever empty.
Our Christmas Letter
What follows is our Christmas letter that accompanied a single photo of the empty rocking chair. On the back of the photo read “Levi Ellis Shu 2009-2017”
This letter was my attempt at being emotionally honest about Levi's death and being grateful for all of the the love and help people have so generously given to us since.
Dear Friends, 2017
It is with deep and sincere gratitude we write to you this holiday
season. You have walked with us through Levi's life, his many seasons
of uncertainty, his miracles, his joys, his death and his renewed life in
Christ. Your generosity of prayer, gifts of time, meals, encouraging
words, gift cards, and financial donations since Levi's passing, have
filled tremendous needs in our lives. Your gifts are literally what
allowed us to stay afloat this year.
When Levi died, so too did all of the rhythms of our daily life,
and so much more. It has been a tsunami of loss and grief,
particularly for Younger Brother. To be honest, we aren't quite
sure how we are still standing.
It is only by your support and the work of the Lord.
This year, in lieu of a smiley family photo, or even the last
photo of us four, we offer you an empty chair image. Made by hand,
three generations ago, used by Mama Shu as a child, anticipated to
be carried forward by generations to come. Two years ago, we asked
our friends at Summer Street to capture this image, knowing one day
Levi's chair in our home would be empty.
We invite you to place this image somewhere you can see
it regularly. As a reminder of Levi, your continued connection with
him, and people you love who have also journeyed ahead of you into
heaven. Feel free to write their names on the back. May the words of
Hebrews 12:1-2a be of encouragement to you as you encounter this
new year.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes
on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
With radiant gratitude,
Peter, Dannell, (Levi), Younger Brother
End Notes
If you would like a copy of this photo to place in your home, please send me your address through the contact me page on this blog.
If you know of a family in Minnesota who is facing their child's end of life, please let them know about The Issac Initiative. A non-profit who dedicated to providing no-cost professional photography to families in the this sacred season.
Photo Credit: SummerStreet Photography
All text and photos are property of MamaShu.org. We encourage you to share this blog posting with friends. However permission is required for use in other contexts or publications.
