The Light Starts Winning Again
Flash nonfiction about the death of a loved one, whose favorite day of the year was the winter solstice
Courtney Welu (she/her) is a writer from the Black Hills of South Dakota. She currently lives in Austin, Texas where she works at a research library. Her previous work can be seen in publications including Gone Lawn, The Turning Leaf Journal, and Paddler Press.
Tonight, we are celebrating Darrell’s favorite night of the year…THE WINTER SOLSTICE!
We received the message on December 21, eleven days before Darrell stopped breathing. One last winter solstice, one last Christmas, one last New Year’s. He announced on December 29, “Today is the day unless Great Spirit wills otherwise.” It took him until January 1 to die.
Darrell believed in the importance of specific days; would have loved dying on New Year’s, a brand new beginning in a marvelous new life, one very far away from here.
His most special day was the winter solstice. He liked the summer solstice and the equinoxes, too, liked anything old, anything to do with the alignment of the stars and the planets and the rotation of earth around the sun. He liked dream interpretation and astrology and tarot and totem animals and anything that made him feel the connectedness of the universe, the incredible cosmic reality that runs underneath the surface of everything.
The unified field, as David Lynch would say.
When Darrell died, I felt as though the world had never experienced a loss quite like it. The universe felt so empty without him and no one knew what they had lost. Darrell Emmel was singular; he was not just my uncle, not just my substitute grandfather. He was a spiritual teacher, a visionary, a wealth of knowledge and creativity and momentum, and even though we knew it was coming, it still felt sudden and raw. Two months after his cancer diagnosis, he was dead.
David Lynch and Darrell were both creators of powerful dream worlds and strange visions. Lynch was ten days younger than Darrell, and died almost exactly a year after him. In the outpouring of public grief, my grief became less lonely. Anyone who knew and loved David Lynch and feels the absence he left behind must understand, at least a little, what losing Darrell Emmel is like for me.
The winter solstice was his special day because of the darkness and the light. On December 21, it’s been getting darker and darker for half of the time it takes for the earth to loop around the sun, and finally we arrive at the apex. The darkest night of the year, the darkest night of the soul.
After tonight, Darrell told me, years and years and years ago — another lifetime ago, maybe — bit by bit, day by day… the light starts winning again.
He pumped his fist in the air in celebration. Nothing could be more exciting to him. The gradual return of the light. I feel as though I’ve been in the dark since he died and I’m not sure how to get the light back. I am perpetually stuck in the darkest night of the year.
He would tell me that I’m not stuck, I’m anything but stuck. The winter solstice is something to celebrate; lingering there is a privilege. Tomorrow, whenever tomorrow may be, the light starts winning again.
Where are you? I ask him in a dream. And why did you have to go?
He doesn’t answer me, but he visits me often. When he appears in the night, I feel a momentary brightening, but it slips away so easily in the morning. I can come up with hundreds of reasons why the Darrell of my dreams is a function of my imagination rather than the real deal. He’d tell me to have a little faith, but it was always easier for him than for me.
This past year, the winter solstice kicked off my mourning cycle – of course, I’d been mourning all year, but the intensity burned through the end of December. The winter solstice, his favorite day of the year. Christmas, the last time I talked to him. New Year’s, the day he died.
I don’t know how humans have done this for centuries. I don’t know how they sit with the loss, again and again. There is a hole in the world without him here.
David Lynch would say “Focus on the donut and not the hole.”
Darrell Emmel would say that tomorrow, the light will start winning again. It’s almost here. Enjoy the darkness while you can – the cycle will loop back around again before you know it. The light is always leaving, always returning, and that’s the way of things. Celebrate it.
The light will start winning again. Any day now.
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