I have learned more about myself this holiday season than any other I have experienced.  Christmastime and the end of a year bring reminiscence.  For me, that memory is dominated by the loss of my son, Aidan, who died in March and whose short life fundamentally changed me.

    I am not an especially sensitive man.  My tears do not come easily.  I tend toward materialistic explanations of worldly events and do not consider myself all that spiritual.  Not much of my time goes to introspection.

    So, it was something of a surprise to me when, on several occasions in the past several weeks, I found a profound sadness welling up from deep inside of me.  I knew what it was about: an emotional reaction to Aidan’s absence.  The surprising part, however, was its utterly uncontrolled and uncontrollable nature.   Sometimes it would be sparked by an identifiable cue – hearing the song "Seasons of Love," for example, which we played at his funeral.  But at other times it came out of nowhere.  I am pretty good at controlling my emotions, but this is something beyond that.

      I think what has happened to me is the accumulation of another layer of life experience, a layer, which is not too far below the surface of my usually positive exterior, of sadness.  It is not buried deep; it is not always hidden.  Rather, it roils up every so often and turns my consciousness.  It is not explosive.  I do not fall into a sobbing heap.  It is more subtle: a slow tug of melancholy that dulls my responses.

     I suspect that something like this has always been there inside me.  Other layers of sadness have been laid down in the past.  But this one is thicker, more substantial.  And it reminds me powerfully of that part of life that is beyond the control of reason.  I cannot think this sadness away.  I have to just let it move through me and onward.  It will always be that way for me, now until the hour of my own death.  Though it does not dominate my life – it comes only occasionally – it is deeply inscribed in my life.

     There have been other losses this year as well.  Two colleagues, Tim Cook and Mac Brown, died.  Tim I knew from graduate school.  He preceded me to Williams and left a few years back to take up a position at LSU.  Just a few years older than me, he contracted a rare brain cancer and – poof – his life ended.  Mac was getting ready to retire when I arrived at Williams.  He was the epitome of the gracious colleague: quiet, unassuming, deeply experienced. 

     One of my former students, Nate Krissoff, also died this year, killed in action in Iraq.  What I remember best about him was his easy smile.

     A lot of loss.  But I hold tight to the line from Chuang Tzu: "there can be no loss."  There can be no loss when you keep things in a broader perspective.  Lives come and go, all lives end, but life – or Way – continues.  Aidan is gone, in one sense, but is still very much a part of me.  He is not lost, certainly not forgotten.  He lives in me and in my wife and daugther.

      We should not worry about our legacies but live the lives we have now.  Not go to excess but simply absorb and appreciate the moment.  Sometimes sadness will well up.  Yet at other times the joy and laughter and love will come through.  A year goes by, another comes along, there will be gain, there will be loss, there will be good, there will be bad, there will be new layers of experience laid down.