Do you have that one Christmas song that you love to hear even though it breaks your heart?

For me it has always been Silent Night.

I don’t know what it is about that song. A few days ago I was at dinner at a friend’s and it came on only it was acoustically different and even in Gaelic.

I think we were talking about nothing in particular.

I burst into tears.

It was really quite out of nowhere.

When I understood actually what the song was I realized it is my kryptonite. So that would explain it.

When you dance with grief the unexpected is your kryptonite. A little kid in an angel costume, cookie exchange, sudden fat snowflakes, a familiar something or other, a memory that pops in out of nowhere, Carol Service, a shiver down your spine while you run, a way that you remember that you are both the same and now there is only one of you, when you are at the receiving end of road and shopping rage, or of kindness, or loss or gain, when mortality hits you, when you feel joy, when you feel pain, when you are elated, when you are quiet, when you are noisy.

It would be so good to just lie down to grief and get it over with.

It does not work that way.