Points for Effort

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it's all right

--George Harrison, "Here Comes the Sun"

Keeping up with the theme for the past several days, the circumstances surrounding spending Christmas Eve with my family changed at the last minute.

My family ended up not going to Christmas Eve Mass.

However, I still wanted to make an effort to connect with my family on Christmas Eve. In some ways, it was harder, but I had to try a little. I was still late for dinner, but everyone seemed to understand. I played piano, I hugged them, I laughed out loud, and I played games.

Of course, it wasn't an idyllic moment every second. But when I looked at my family as they gathered in my grandparents' living room, I finally saw what I had been hoping to witness. We were trying. We were hardly perfect at expressing care, compassion, or comfort, but we were making some sort of effort to show love, to be engaged with each other, to connect.

It may not seem like much, but for me, it was enough.

My hope remains for my family that we would continue to make some sort of effort. Sometimes it's not about loving well, or enough, or perfectly. Even when we fail, even when things don't turn out the way that we had hoped or planned, even when the response is silence, in the end, it's still love when we try. One may never know how or when making that effort can make a world of a difference.

Even though I didn't have to endure what I had been preparing for all week, I will never regret that decision to go with them to Christmas Eve Mass.

The ice is slowly melting...and it's all right.

George, you were always my favorite Beatle.