Hope Blooms
Thirteen years ago our family walked through a season that left its mark forever. It begun with the doctors grim news that my dad’s cancer was terminal. And it ended with the last few breaths breathed early in the dark of night on December 15th. The whole season still feels a little like a blur. Like an abstract painting with swathes of sorrow and tears and grief, but yes also of laughter and togetherness. Dark shades of greys and blues mixed in with splashes of yellows and creams. Dark and light.
It feels fitting that this last day was right in the middle of advent. My favourite advent memories have him at the centre, with fuzzy beard and a twinkle in his eye. No, he wasn’t Santa Claus, though I distinctly remember when he would dress as Saint Nicholas for the German Christmas tea and we knew it was him because of that twinkle and because Papa was always mysteriously absent every time Nicholas would come. (He would usually make up some excuse about being in the bathroom too long.) He loved the season and all it held. The cakes, the candles, the tradition, the surprises, and most of all, the shortest day of the year. Because as soon as Dec 21 hit, it was if the very bones of his body could sense that spring was coming and light would return
His favourite Christmas carol was a traditional German one called “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” The lyrics, translated to English, are as follows:
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
As men of old have sung.
It came, a flow’ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
Isaiah ’twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright,
She bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
This Flow’r, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere.
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.
Also fitting is that every year as this day comes around and I find myself thinking about my Papa, we once again are in the middle of advent. This song that he loved reminds me of the fact that a baby was born all those years ago into a dark night, the light of the world, “dispel[ling] with glorious splendour the darkness everywhere.” I am reminded that the Saviour came into the world with the purpose to defeat death, “from sin and death He saves us, and lightens every load.”
There are days that are still hard, where the grief comes out of nowhere, when my breath is caught in my throat in a sob at the sorrow of all we are missing with him gone. But with the same breath I am able to rejoice. Because when my Papa breathed his last breath in the dark of night, he was welcomed into glory where there is never winter and always spring.
Papa, Ich liebe dich. I am so happy to be celebrating Advent again. The stollen is delicious as always. The candles flicker in the late evening reminding me of the light that came in the darkness. The angel chimes are on top of the piano. We’ll sing this song at Christmas and think of you. I think you’d be proud of us. We miss you. I wish we had more time together and could share a cup of coffee (did you know I drink my coffee like you did? Cream, sugar, and cold because I forgot it somewhere?) I wish I could see that twinkle in your eye and the laugh lines crinkle as you begin to deliver the punch line to a funny story. I wish I could feel the rough tickle of your beard against my hair. I am so grateful for the hope that we have of eternity together. We’ll see you soon.
Written in memory of my Papa, Detlev Gunter Buschhaus, who entered glory on December 15th, 2007