A Christmas Message

A Christmas Message

By Stuart Hanson, Managing Partner & Family Mediator

2020 has marked a year of acute change – one that no one could have contemplated. We have seen every aspect of our lives impacted and no one has been spared. Life has become more precious, as death has torn through society and fear has become an everyday emotion. Our lives have become different and we now see our existence through new eyes, but at the same time remembering days out and the freedom of being yourself. Liberty has been replaced with imposed complex and constraining rules set by faceless bureaucrats. Words such as “quarantine” and “lockdown” have flooded our worlds and we are living a “new normal”.

Divorce and separation hold many similarities to the pandemic we are experiencing. Something negative enters life and erodes the foundation of our being. What we held close to us is no longer there and we are left with the fragments of our past life that pierce our consciousness and bring pain and isolation. It is an imposed existence that is not wanted where choice seems to have been removed and the rhythm we once danced to is no longer recognised. We are transported to a foreign country with a new language and a landscape that is unchartered. However, if we look up from our feet and refocus on the distant horizon, faint paths etched into the rough terrain can be seen.

Christmas this year will be different, but the days we have off are an opportunity to look forward and not back. The present may be full of doubt, but maintain your faith amongst the bleakness of winter and know that the ice will thaw when love enters. At this Christmas time, it may be hard to know what to do, but the poet, Christina Rossetti left these words to reflect on,

“What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.”