Lines between prayer and thought

Six final exams, one suitcase, two planes, 1,500 miles.

Home.

Family night is on its way, my brothers will arrive any moment.

I’ll set the table.

Plates, silverware, napkins.

One, two…five, six plates.

No—not six plates. Not anymore. Five.

Five plates. Five sets of silverware. Five napkins.

Family of five.

Routine and desire cried out for six. Though most of my life we set a table for five, the last four years had been different.

The extra chair at our old kitchen table had finally been given purpose as it came to belong to my beloved sister-in-law. 

Our table was full and right and well. We hadn’t recognized its emptiness until she came to fill the space.

But one night she got up from the table, and (certainly without pushing her chair in) turned her back on all of us.

And now there it sets—empty, messy, and dark as ever. Who knew emptiness could carry such a presence.

We left that chair un-pushed-in, and her place setting untouched on the table for a long time, just in case. In case our hope should be fulfilled, in case reconciliation might prove its truth to us.

For months her plate gathered dust and her misplaced chair only became a hazard to the household.

The work of healing is an ornery thing. It tends not to feel like healing at all. Perhaps because healing does not take the place of grief.

And grief is rather an ugly ordeal which must be tended to with utmost care, lest it turn you into a person you don’t want to be.

Perhaps grief always affects people in ways they did not request, though. Perhaps we’re all people we didn’t want to be.

This empty chair cannot simply cease existing, though I often wish to forget its place around our table. And I fear what neglecting to tend to the space it holds might do.

Because this chair does indeed belong here.

She left, but she does not cease. Her existence is still a consideration in the world. We can never deny her place in our family, though it may only exist in the past. We are not who we are, without her presence— that presence which is now absence.

But how are we to consider a presence that is now an absence? The presence of emptiness? The presence of an active memory? Or perhaps the presence of an active forgetfulness.

It feels almost loyal, in a way, to consider this presence simply as that which shattered my brother’s heart. I’ve been told I have a right to angrily consider her the agent of familial turmoil. Pieces of me want and often choose to consider her as she was on that day: liar, traitor, unfaithful, arrogant. Then my heart sinks to see her as afraid, abused, insecure, lost…my sister. My sister who left a million memories on my heart.

We’re all just a little lost.

But then it still feels loyal, or at least human, to be considerate of her existence.

Of her humanity.

Of her life.

Of her dignity.

I wished desperately for this to be a Eucharistic table.

Prayed with each plate placed side-by-side for peace and

And

God knows what else

Can this meal take place without her?

Prayers unanswered echoed.

God grant us peace.

God, restore us to unity. 

Bring her home. 

Give us the joy of your saving help again.

How am I to forget? To let this kitchen chair fade into the dull presence of useless objects around the house?

Maybe.

Nevertheless, she is here.

And where is Christ?

Send your glory.

This body is broken.