The Empty Chairs

When joy and grief arrive together at life’s celebrations

Joy and sadness, excitement and sorrow, pride and longing.

It’s graduation week for my only child.

And with its busyness, a reflection: milestones don't suspend grief; they tend to magnify it.

We settled into the velvet folding seats of the theatre, our bellies full of tacos grilled fresh outside and shared with fellow families. The lights dimmed over us and lit up the stage. A candelabra stood at center with candles slightly askew, a table of trophies and medallions shone from a table on stage left, and at stage right a giggling group of students took turns reading speeches about the history of the Thespian Honor Society. After each candle was lit, my son was called on stage to say the pledge and be inducted – a meaningful conclusion to his four years of high school theatre. To cap it off, he was later recalled to the stage to receive an Outstanding Performance award.

The auditorium erupted in cheers when they called his name. Students pumped their fists in the air as they cheered for him. I blinked back tears, my heart full, taking in the warmth, community, and mutual support of this group of creative and talented teens.

Every day is filled with milestones, award ceremonies, and adventures to mark this momentous transition. Next up: Baccalaureate. Academic awards night. Commencement. Banquet. Brunch.

It’s a whirlwind of excitement and tearful last moments. Pride and remembrance.

And there’s sorrow, sitting alongside it all.

There are four empty chairs that should be, would have been, filled with loved ones lost; those who were such important parts of accompanying him through childhood. Every celebration makes the ache throb anew. Longing for the witnessing, joining, sharing in celebration; for my son to receive the love of more family than is left in these two seats.

This hidden ache is not unique to my child or family.

Every June, I have patients graduate from high school or college. Other patients prepare for summer weddings. And for too many of them, there are empty seats. Places that should be occupied by a loved one, no longer in their lives, whether by tragedy or choice.

Sometimes it brings guilt at crossing stages siblings will never cross. Sometimes there’s fear of entering a new phase, of becoming a new person, different from the way a lost parent knew them, as though moving on might mean betrayal. Sometimes it’s just dark, heavy sorrow, an acute reminder of absence in spaces they should be, celebrations that should be shared.

I think of the sons and daughters graduating to new schools or stages of life whose mother or father did not live to see them cross the stage. Entering territory which the deceased parent will not know. Even more common: the students flipping tassels without the witness of parents who simply choose not to come, not to be a part of their child’s lives, not to celebrate the moments, small or large.

I think of the students remembering the classmate who died in a tragic car crash, or from too many pills all at once, or from the bullets of an angry peer. The abrupt truncation of adolescence, and the sobering devastation left behind. The sense that the class is incomplete.

I think of the brides preparing to walk the aisle to their grooms, their fathers absent because of forced deportation, premature death, incarceration, or because they simply never showed up for any milestone before. Choosing to walk alone, or to seek a substitute to fill an unfillable hole.

Joy dimmed by sorrow.

Laughter covering heartache.

There’s no easy fix to this pain.

What I am practicing in this tempered-joyous space is this:

In our home, we let ourselves grieve. We make room for the feelings – both excitement and longing, happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain. We give voice to the complexity. We name the unspoken.

And where it feels incomplete, I write. Private letters, unsent. Though the addressee may be unreachable, the need to express what the heart yearns to say remains. Let the words flow. In a journal, on stationary, in a private folder on your laptop. Let your heart send out what it needs to say. Who knows – perhaps in the vast mysteries of the universe, some sense of it may travel where it needs to go. But without doubt, the releasing lightens the load carried inside.

I allow myself to linger in gratitude. Not for their absence, but for the role the missing person(s) did play in shaping the one being honored. We can name and bring absent loved ones into milestone celebrations by speaking their names, by expressing gratitude for how they contributed, in small or large ways, for however long they remained, along our paths to these high places.

Sometimes it helps to create small rituals. To wear their jewelry. To include their signature recipe in the menu. To tell the story they always told. To raise a toast. To leave a seat at the reception empty and reserved, a simple flower marking their place.

We find ways to carry them with us into rooms they can no longer physically enter and into new memories that matter. Not because these erase longing, but because they create a bridge between presence and absence.

Sometimes the people who should have been there cannot be. If it feels right, it’s okay to allow others to step forward. A teacher, a mentor, a neighbor, a friend. Not as replacements – they can never be replaced - but as additional supports and witnesses to a life unfolding.

And sometimes, we simply let the absence be felt.

As I write, I’m distractedly switching screens to the website of the nearby ice cream shop to order cake for my son’s graduation party. Ice cream cake, the perfect solution to hot near-summer days and to removing baking from my over-flowing to-do list.

And I think, celebrations in absentia are a bit like ice cream cake. There are layers of cake and layers of ice cream, layers of joy and layers of grief. It doesn’t have to be just one or the other; they can exist together, comingled.

And all are welcome here.

In the end, may the flavors of sweetness in your celebrations be the lingering taste on your lips.

From my heart to yours,

Deborah

I’m Deborah Vinall, PsyD, LMFT, a trauma therapist and author exploring trauma, relationships, belonging, and the complicated work of being human.

My books—including Gaslighting: A Step-by-Step Recovery Guide and Trauma Recovery Workbook for Teens—have helped readers around the world understand and heal from relational and other forms of trauma and find their way back to themselves.

Here on Mental Health Musings, I explore those themes more personally, blending clinical insight with reflection, and occasionally sharing guided meditations and resources for healing.

If this kind of work speaks to you, I invite you to subscribe to receive future reflections and guided resources.