Benn, what a beautiful piece you’ve gifted us today. I remember countless moments like that one in the video of your mom with you, Emmy and Sam. Oh how she loved you and loved being a mom. Your words about grief are particularly poignant to me this last day of 2024, having lost my sister in law and my father this year. As I seek moments of light in the darkness and glimpses of joy amidst the pain, I cherish your words. My own experience with grieving your mom has been tumultuous and more painful than I ever imagined. But I’ve learned, as you have that love and grief are intimately intertwined and that there is One whose perspective we cannot possibly know earth side. As I’ve wrestled with these topics I have come to cherish the people around me more than ever - a lasting gift of loss. Happy New Year Benn, may 2025 be gentle with our hearts and may we be bold in how we love.
Thank you for writing truth with such beauty. As so many of us who love you, I am grateful that I remember you as a babe in the arms of your lovely mom, as a small boy, as a slightly bigger boy singing the 1st verse of Once in Royal David's City, and on through the years full of joy and grief. Thanks be to God who teaches us and heals us through our memories and through our grieving. May this year hold wonder for you.
My Dad over the years had filmed multiple Xerox boxes of VHS tapes from my first year of life until my sister and I eventually picked up the 10lb camera and started making vids ourselves (I always wondered how many filmmakers statistically shared this in their past). It was interesting this year hearing my mom state how she doesn't like watching these videos because it makes her sad. She doesn't articulate ideas as fully or poetically as my siblings and I who grew up with Youtube confessionals and therapy speak, so I wonder if it's a longing of when we were cuter and smaller or when we needed her more.
The complexity of life is easily forgotten if all we see is a glimpse of a “simpler” time. I’m sure there was just as much craziness going on in the world in 1996 but all the camera sees is a little bit of loveliness. I wonder if that contrast is part of it for her, the impression that it was a simpler/better time.
Which, in a sense I’m sure it was. Less life lived means less pain accumulated. I think we’ll always look back at our younger selves as, in some sense, more innocent than our present selves at any age.
Benn, what a beautiful piece you’ve gifted us today. I remember countless moments like that one in the video of your mom with you, Emmy and Sam. Oh how she loved you and loved being a mom. Your words about grief are particularly poignant to me this last day of 2024, having lost my sister in law and my father this year. As I seek moments of light in the darkness and glimpses of joy amidst the pain, I cherish your words. My own experience with grieving your mom has been tumultuous and more painful than I ever imagined. But I’ve learned, as you have that love and grief are intimately intertwined and that there is One whose perspective we cannot possibly know earth side. As I’ve wrestled with these topics I have come to cherish the people around me more than ever - a lasting gift of loss. Happy New Year Benn, may 2025 be gentle with our hearts and may we be bold in how we love.
I’ll send you some of the clips when I’m done, you’re in a few of them.
That would be amazing.
Thank you for writing truth with such beauty. As so many of us who love you, I am grateful that I remember you as a babe in the arms of your lovely mom, as a small boy, as a slightly bigger boy singing the 1st verse of Once in Royal David's City, and on through the years full of joy and grief. Thanks be to God who teaches us and heals us through our memories and through our grieving. May this year hold wonder for you.
Beautiful piece, Benn.. And oh, so true. Thank you.
My Dad over the years had filmed multiple Xerox boxes of VHS tapes from my first year of life until my sister and I eventually picked up the 10lb camera and started making vids ourselves (I always wondered how many filmmakers statistically shared this in their past). It was interesting this year hearing my mom state how she doesn't like watching these videos because it makes her sad. She doesn't articulate ideas as fully or poetically as my siblings and I who grew up with Youtube confessionals and therapy speak, so I wonder if it's a longing of when we were cuter and smaller or when we needed her more.
The complexity of life is easily forgotten if all we see is a glimpse of a “simpler” time. I’m sure there was just as much craziness going on in the world in 1996 but all the camera sees is a little bit of loveliness. I wonder if that contrast is part of it for her, the impression that it was a simpler/better time.
Which, in a sense I’m sure it was. Less life lived means less pain accumulated. I think we’ll always look back at our younger selves as, in some sense, more innocent than our present selves at any age.
Thanks for reading :)