As Megan mentioned in her blog, the holidays can be a source of tenderness for her. Not only because of her mother’s passing, but like many of us, the whole complexities of family dynamics can cause added friction. This year, as is often the case, when Megan began feeling the onset of this tenderness, she began turning inward, trying to make herself invisible to the rest of her family.
Of course, after 8 years of marriage I have become accustomed to this pattern and how she feels invisibility is her best an often only defense. So, too have I become trained in understanding those final hints in body language that signal the onset of this attempted invisibility.
If ever you have loved someone as much as I love Megan, the last thing that you want is to let your love become invisible. Indeed, you are able to see all of the magnificence in occasions like this that they are unable to recognize within themselves. Such was the case with me this past Christmas.
When Megan began to take on her cloak of invisibility, I immediately felt the shift in her energy, behavior and I also noticed an energy shift in the room as a whole. To my surprise, no one else caught it at first. Perhaps because their attention was elsewhere or perhaps this was because this was the pattern that had developed over a long time in which Megan had grown up.
When I noticed this and asked Megan if she was okay, she immediately shrunk deeper into her invisibility, denying that anything was going on. As I noticed her attempting to avoid my questions, I asked again and once more she tried to deny her feelings, denying herself the space in which to express the well of emotions that was beginning to rise from her. I let it go for a few minutes knowing that trying to push harder would only end in disaster. Soon, I discovered the opportunity to approach it from a different angle. I knew she was not at a place where she felt comfortable expressing those feelings verbally.
Megan got up to refill my drink and when she returned I invited her to sit on my lap, where I could hold and caress her. Rather than sitting beside me, where she could collapse into herself, she settled into my lap. As I held her in my arms, her tension began to soften. Because of the way we were positioned, I was not able to see her face, but I suspect with the softening of her tension, some of the emotions that she had tried so hard to conceal began to show themselves.
I was not expecting what transpired next. From across the kitchen where we were all gathered in discussion, Megan’s father glanced over at us. It was the first time since Megan began feeling anxious that his eyes had passed our way. And in that moment, I witnessed a beauty that I had not seen between the two of them before. At first, he only noticed that I was holding Megan in my lap, but as he looked more closely, I saw his countenance shift as he realized the swell of emotions that was transpiring within Megan. He glanced at me as I held her, and in that silent acknowledgement understood my refusal to allow Megan to become invisible, forgotten.
My wife, his daughter so beautiful as she experienced her feelings; no longer in isolation, no longer forgotten or overlooked by her family, and as the conversation in the room shifted, he moved toward us and was able to acknowledge her verbally in a way that she had long denied herself to the point of forgetting.
This Christmas, I am Thankful for my wife, and for her courage not to become invisible.
~ Barton
Wow, Barton, you are just amazing. I, too, have trouble with the holidays and this year chose to actually *avoid* my family gathering altogether. I’m very grateful for the presence of Eric in my life. I know he would not want me to be invisible either. I’m grateful for knowing you and Megan too!