Denise Snodell: Finding light in this holiday season

Imagine my panic when I realized this regularly scheduled column was set to publish on Christmas Eve-Eve.

Would I go for lighthearted? Or maybe sentimental? I considered blathering about the time I took my then-little sons downtown to see The Nutcracker and it snowed that very night.

But I wondered. How could I be attentive to readers’ emotions at this time, this holiday of light? A mighty task. An impossible one.

I can’t ignore that this year has been particularly tough around the world and right here in this newspaper zone. Headlines we could have never imagined materialized before our eyes, over and over. On a personal level, many people I care about have suffered challenges and losses — the worst kind. I’m seious when I tell you I had to pause from writing this very paragraph to get an update from a faraway relative who was scurrying between a troubling hospital visit and a funeral.

Even the smaller daily stressors, my own included, seem to pile higher than any snowplow can handle. We can’t escape these things.

So what do we do when life casts shadows on a season of joy? We pay attention. We look for light anyway. Or sometimes light finds us.

Consider the above-mentioned funeral, which, oddly, leads to a story that’s hopefully fitting for this season. The service was for my Aunt Therese, my father’s sister. I missed it. With a 1,200 mile trip to consider, barriers arose. I wanted to hop on a plane to support my dad and cousins. I stared at airline websites. I paced the floors. There was much to weigh. I have learned over the years, with this geography glitch, it’s difficult to show up to everything. I try, but I have missed family events, both happy and sad.

The day I muddled through shaping this Christmas week column was the same day I missed my aunt’s service. Therese, a mom of three boys, was the quintessential French woman, with her captivating sing-song accent and her crepe-infused cooking habits.

To add to my aunt’s French-ness, the man she married was a stained glass artist. He created windows for churches and cathedrals across France, and eventually brought his art to America. That, in turn, inspired stained glass dabbling among other family members, including my father and my mother’s artist cousin, Mildred. It became a 1960s stained glass crafting frenzy. Sheets and shards of colorful pieces were exchanged within the family. Everybody wanted to capture altered light from the sun, the moon and the stars.

But what does this have to do with anything?

The day of the funeral, my brother sent me an iPhone picture. He was on the Long Island Railroad, bound for my aunt’s memorial service. The photo was of a stained glass medallion he was holding in his hand as he sat on the train — a remnant of those long ago days. Somehow, it wound up in his apartment. The medallion was a peace sign (so Sixties) made of red, opaque white and blue glass. He didn’t know who made it. My aunt? My dad? Artsy cousin Mildred? He felt compelled to bring it with him to show my parents, but they weren’t sure of its creator.

After the funeral, when my brother was on the train heading back to the city, he sent me a flurry of family pictures he captured from the memorial display. These were images of my aunt’s life we had never seen before. I zoomed in on one of my dad at a picnic, in a casual group shot with his sister. He was wearing the stained glass peace sign around his neck. I immediately alerted my brother. We were both astounded. My dad has never been one to sport a medallion, but on that summer day in that random photo, he was wearing the exact peace sign my brother carried with him to the funeral a half century later.

The gift of my brother’s ongoing updates, coupled with the mystery and coincidence surrounding the medallion, lifted me from the doldrums. I paid attention and stumbled upon some light — a sign of peace, heavenly peace.

Merry Christmas.

This story was originally published December 22, 2015 at 9:25 AM with the headline "Denise Snodell: Finding light in this holiday season."