“Breath of heaven, hold me together…”
Two days after Christmas in 1981 and just a week shy of my 21st birthday, my 52-year-old mother died following a six-month, one-sided battle with pancreatic cancer. That last Christmas was a dreary one, for we all knew what was coming soon. Although we gathered in the front room of our family home in North St. Louis and did what we always did on Christmas day — we ate a big meal and exchanged gifts — my mother was already a ghost of her former self. We told ourselves she was “holding on for one last Christmas,” and we were right about that. Soon after, she lapsed into a coma from which she never emerged.
I’ve had many joyful Christmas mornings with my family since that day, and those Christmases became increasingly more joyful with the birth of my own children and, now, grandchildren. And yet, it seems there’s always a moment or a day near the end of Advent when those memories of her final Christmas come flooding (or trickling) back, insinuating themselves into my life and reminding me of all that she missed and all my own children have missed in not having her in their lives. The Christmas season can be tough on all of us.
On those darker days of remembrance, I have found myself turning to this song and praying, like so many others who feel as if they might be falling apart this time of year: Hold me together. Be forever near me. Breath of Heaven.
Although made famous by the contemporary Christian artist Amy Grant, who elevated the song to the status of a modern Christmas classic, “Breath of Heaven,” was originally written as a simple prayer by British songwriter Chris Eaton. And surprisingly, it wasn’t a Christmas song at all. It was Grant who, expecting her third child when she first heard the song, transformed it by suggesting it could be sung from the perspective of the expectant Mother of God. Grant has said in interviews that she found herself deeply relating to the uncertainty and vulnerability that Mary must have felt — that we all feel.
Perhaps there is not a more appropriate and simple prayer than this for all of us as we enter into a season that can often feel less like a sacred time of preparation and more like a headlong dash from Thanksgiving to Christmas: Breath of heaven, hold me together.
