“Have there been any falls lately?” has been almost the first question every health professional asked my husband.

Until recently, the answer was always no. The absence of a fall was a good thing. The presence of two, not so much.

The absence of light this past winter has been noted by many. It was the darkest since 1950. Heavy cloud cover. Few sunny days. If we wonder about feeling low, it may have been the lack of sunshine.

The absence of light can also be a gift. Many winter nights, I would drive home after an evening meeting, turn off the car lights, and stand still, astounded by the myriad of stars overhead. Stars are still there in the morning. They are still there in the downtown of a city. But it is the absence of light around us that enables us to see them.

Absence of the opportunity to socialize was a challenge in the last three years. Especially during lock downs, we felt the emptiness. We managed to get through it, but there will have been a heavy cost for some. As events are slowly coming back, we are appreciating the renewed opportunity to explore, to chat, to engage with community.

The absence of leaves in the winter is a gift. We get to see the structure of plants and trees. We can see farther in the forest, notice the deer and the grouse, follow the fox on its rambles. As much as I am looking forward to spring and trees leafing out, I am aware how much will be hidden. And we don’t want those leaves to break too soon, at least on the maples, so that we get a nice long run of maple sap.

Grief comes like a flood, endures as an ache when we lose someone we love, someone we are close to. Their absence is like a weight on our chest, a hole in our heart. It can feel like our life is unraveling because the threads this person held are left loose, unattended.

The absence of routine can be disorienting. When we know what we have to do in a day, we don’t have to think too much about our next step. We get up, eat, drink coffee or orange juice, dress and leave the house at about the same time every day. When life shifts on us and the routine is gone, we have to decide what to do and when.

On the other hand, the lack of routine gives us space. We choose a vacation so that we can relax. We shift jobs so that we can discover new things about ourselves, develop new skills. We retire so that we can do things that we love. The absence of routine can give us time and space to change.

Until I started to think about absence, I would have said that it is a bad thing, a difficult thing, a problem. We don’t like missing things or people. But as I thought about it, I also realized that it can be essential and a gift, something to be cherished. So let me end with a blessing for absence that comes from John O’Donahue’s book To Bless The Space Between Us:

May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence,
that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.

May the absences in your life grow full of eternal echo.

May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere,
where the presences that have left you dwell.

May you be generous in your embrace of loss.

May the sore well of grief turn into a seamless flow of presence.

May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from.

May you have the courage to speak for the excluded ones.

May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.

May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words or false belonging.

May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight are one.

May your longing inhabit its dreams within the Great Belonging.

Cathy Hird lives on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.