Month: December 2016

Peace, Love and Grief… The perfect Christmas

As I write this week, it is still several days before Christmas. I am off work and enjoying a few precious moments of quiet. As I sit here, signs of this year’s Christmas season are all around me… the tree, the lights, decorations, nativity sets, Mickey (our Elf on the Shelf), the Advent wreath and of course, Christmas music playing in the background… sounds like the setting for the perfect Christmas special or commercial.

That really makes me laugh, because these few quiet moments are not the norm… I don’t know about everyone, but many of us find our holidays filled with chaos, noise, shopping, and go-here-go-there craziness. I believe it’s the reason we all laugh at the Grinch’s frustration with the Christmas season… We completely understand how he feels, because we live it!

But why do we do it? For whatever reason, we seem to have bought into the Hollywood version of a “perfect Christmas,” and, we seem to believe we can create that perfection by all this “doing. Personally, I think we have been led horribly astray.

As I have written several times, I spent my first Christmas without Bruce trying to ignore the holiday. Without him, I knew I would never have the perfect Christmas… Without him, I didn’t want any Christmas at all. It was going to be too hard… There would be too much pain involved. So, instead, I sat on the sidelines watching everyone else “do” the Christmas dance… too busy to notice anyone who might not be celebrating… anyone who might be hurting.

The strangest part was I knew that had been me for so many years, as well. It was quite the eye opener. It didn’t take me long to realize all those years when I was trying to achieve the “perfect Christmas,” I always seemed to fall short… until Bruce.

Bruce lived such a simple life… “Things” were not important to him – people were… And Christmas was no different. He loved the decorating and the music, but he wasn’t willing to participate in all the craziness, shopping crowds and running around.

When we lived in Michigan, Christmas was about family. Sure, we woke up and exchanged a couple of gifts, but the excitement was centered around going to his folk’s house for the day… Nothing fancy – just lots of delicious food, great conversation, family games and tons of laughter.

When we moved to Florida, that tradition was gone… At first, we floundered to create new ones… Okay, actually, I was panicked that Christmas would be “ruined,” but Bruce took it all in stride. He simply created new traditions that sometimes included friends or family who were visiting and other times only included the two of us. Yet, it never seemed to matter. Somehow, Bruce who never got caught up in all the hoopla always managed to create the perfect Christmas.

I think that was the reason for my anxiety that first year without him… How could I do that without him?… I was pretty sure I couldn’t, so I didn’t even try. The next few years, I gave a little more effort to celebrate, and while those years were good, it wasn’t the same… However, the scary part was I found myself “doing” more and more to create the “perfect Christmas,” even when I knew that wasn’t the answer.

This year, having a child in the house has brought a lot more “doing” into our house, as well. I find myself wanting to create the “perfect Christmas” for him. Yet, the more I “do,” the less perfect it feels. Then, this week it hit me – something Bruce figured out a long time ago and lived daily… not just at Christmas…

This is not a perfect world and there is no “perfect Christmas.”

If this world were perfect, there would have been no need for the birth of that little baby 2000 years ago. Yet, even He didn’t come to make this world perfect… He simply came to bring us love… To show us what it looks and feels like when love is real and genuine.

Two thousand years later, that is all we need to do… love. To create the perfect Christmas, we don’t need to “do” all the things on a list dictated by the world around us…

Instead, simply do the things that bring you joy and make it easier for you to show others you love them… The rest of it? Let it go!

I still miss Bruce every day, and it is unlikely my world will ever feel “perfect” again without him. But, I am learning I don’t need a perfect world… Instead, I can carry on the legacy Bruce left behind. I can let go of impossible, exhausting expectations, and replace them with simple, quiet moments filled with love…

The same love that filled a manger over 2000 years ago.

With that in mind, my prayer for all of us this Christmas continues to be…

“May we each take the time to love, laugh and celebrate… May we slow down and reach out to those around us who may be hurting… May we be willing to simply hold a hand, give a hug, or listen…”
“May each of us be willing to simply BE the love and acceptance each of us is seeking from the world around us.”

Merry Christmas from my imperfect, love-filled home to yours!

If you are struggling with celebrating the holidays after your loss, please let us all be there for you. If you have any ideas that have helped you through the holidays, please share them here for others. This is our community… Let’s reach out and be the compassion we each seek.

To share your thoughts and experiences go to the comments and leave your message. *

This is a weekly blog, for daily affirmations we have a Facebook page of the same name. Join us daily at www.facebook.com/peaceloveandgrief

* Be advised that all comments are subject to approval prior to posting. Any comments determined to be spam or not in accordance with the mission of this website/blog will not be approved or posted. Furthermore, any comments determined to be hostile in nature will be reported to the proper authorities. Thank you.

Peace, Love and Grief… Twas the week before Christmas

Here we are – the week before Christmas… life is crazy and busy. On the one hand, I love it! I love the parades, the performances, the singing, even a certain amount of the hustle and bustle. I love the lights, the music and (of course) the food. I love visits from friends and family and shopping for the “perfect” gifts. This has been the first year in a very long time I have been so immersed in the Christmas season and all that goes with it.

At the same time, there are days when I feel a bit lost… Sometimes as I stop to catch my breath, I find there is not a lot of “peace on earth” to be found. I struggle to find time for any of the things that help me keep my world balanced, such as time for reflection or meditation.

Not so long ago (just four short years ago), I was completely at the other end of this experience. For the first time ever, I was alone for the holidays. There was no tree or shopping or music to ring in the holiday. In fact, there was probably too much quiet in my life. I found myself sitting on the sidelines watching the all the craziness… Half of me wishing I was still a part of the chaos, and yet at the same time, the other half was relieved I wasn’t.

Too Busy
Everyone is so busy.
No one has time to talk to a woman alone…
A woman lost.
In a season of celebration, a season of love, things have turned around…
They are out of balance.
For it has become a season of things…
Things to get, things to buy, things to decorate, things to do.
But people, the ones alone, the ones that little Babe came to love,
They are forgotten, pushed aside
Because
Everyone is too busy to take a moment to care.
~ Linda, December 2013

That first year, the year I tried to ignore Christmas was hard. The holiday was everywhere I turned. I knew I wasn’t ready to participate, but I still needed someone to remember I existed. Don’t misunderstand, my family and my friends were wonderful. I was the one struggling… But even I didn’t know what I needed, so how could they?

Navigating the holidays was one of the hardest parts of this journey for me… And still is. Each year, however, I have participated a little bit more than the year before. That has been good, but it still isn’t easy… I still have many moments of feeling lost and alone with the world racing past me.

This year, with a child in the house again, I have found the season can easily take on a life of its own. Maintaining a balance between “holiday peace” and “holiday fun” has been one of my struggles this year. Each day, I try to start with my normal meditation and gratitude list… And each day, I quickly find my mind shifting in a thousand directions to all the things I “need to do” in the days before Christmas.

I refer to this as my Monkey Mind… It is that constant back and forth battle in our minds that can be a bit frustrating. You know what I mean? It is that “voice in your head” that will wake you up in the middle of the night with a list of things you must get done and absolutely cannot forget. (Aaaargh!) Maybe it is really a “Mother’s Mind,” but I’m sure you know what I mean.

My other struggle has been the guilt associated with knowledge… The knowledge of what people struggling with loss experience during this season. The knowledge that there is someone out there tonight hurting and alone. I know that gut-wrenching pain. I know what it feels like to collapse in the middle of a room and cry until there are no more tears left to cry. It is a horrible feeling.

There is also the knowledge that Bruce is not here – not last year, not this year… never again. It has been 4 years since we celebrated Christmas together, and when I allow myself the time to really think about that and all it encompasses, I hurt all over again.

So now what?

Yes, it is the week before Christmas. Yes, it is a time of love, laughter and celebration. And yes, for many of us, it is also a time of memories and tears…

With that in mind, my prayer for all of us this week before Christmas…

“May we each take the time to love, laugh and celebrate… May we also slow down long enough to see those around us who may be hurting… And may we reach out and simply hold a hand, give a hug, or listen to a memory…

Let each of us become a divine reality for someone else by simply being the love and acceptance each of us is seeking from the world around us.”

If you are struggling with celebrating the holidays after your loss, please let us all be there for you. If you have any ideas that have helped you through the holidays, please share them here for others. This is our community… Let’s reach out and be the compassion we each seek.

To share your thoughts and experiences go to the comments and leave your message. *

This is a weekly blog, for daily affirmations we have a Facebook page of the same name. Join us daily at www.facebook.com/peaceloveandgrief

* Be advised that all comments are subject to approval prior to posting. Any comments determined to be spam or not in accordance with the mission of this website/blog will not be approved or posted. Furthermore, any comments determined to be hostile in nature will be reported to the proper authorities. Thank you.

Peace, Love and Grief… Decorating and grief

Note: Just moments before posting my blog last week, we had a “milk meets computer” incident. Thank you for your patience as we worked to get back up and running this week.

For anyone grieving, the holidays are tough… They just are. I wish I could share some great “tricks” to help you through this time, but honestly, there are none.

The first year, (as I’ve told you before), I completely ignored the holiday. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do it. There were some who tried to push the holiday on me by inviting me over to surprise me with their decorations and music… That didn’t work. In fact, it only upset me more. There were others who tried the guilt approach by reminding me that the holiday is based on faith, and is not about me or Bruce at all. While true, it is still a holiday with traditions built around those we love, so this didn’t work either. In fact, it actually just made me question my faith.

The bottom line was – I wasn’t ready. Grief is one of those things that is different for everyone. We each need to go at it in our own way… and in our own time. While I knew this in my gut, it was difficult to express it in such a way that others could understand.

The next year was slightly different… I felt braver… I wanted to participate in Christmas. I remember…

Journal Entry – Dec 2, 2014
“Hi Babe… feeling down… really struggling and missing you. Yesterday was okay – good actually… Until I started some Christmas decorating last night. : ( I thought I was ready. I thought I would be okay, but it broke me. I didn’t do Christmas last year, so this is my first time unpacking this stuff since you died. And since this box represents our last few weeks together, the memories are bittersweet and the tears seem to be endless. All I managed to get out were two nativity sets, the light brick and the stocking holders. (What am I going to do with those?) Hang one stocking? Do I hang yours? I don’t know what to do there… What do I do? I cried myself to sleep and woke up still crying. I’m not very good at this whole widow/grief thing. I can’t seem to just “move on.” I still love and miss you so much! How can this be my life? How can you be gone? How does someone with so much love and life just cease to exist? I don’t think I will ever understand this.”

“I keep remembering how much you loved Christmas – all the decorations and the music… your big ole grin when you watched me decorate or when you put on the Christmas music; your big smile that first Christmas when you laid on your belly in the snow to cut down the tree my youngest had picked; how much you loved all the treats and how excited you got about getting me the “perfect” gift. You loved the fact that this season was all about family and that was what you celebrated. When we were in Michigan, your folks would be there for the whole month and we would spend as much time as possible with them. This was also the time we would spend a week with my family back home. All that is gone now… It was you, Babe. You brought the magic to our lives and now you’re gone. Now I don’t know what to do. I’m so lost… I thought I could do this, but now… I don’t know.”

It was hard that year, but I figured it out – I did hang both stockings. Beside Bruce’s, I placed a small box of paper and a pen. I used these to write down special memories of our Christmases together, and placed these in his stocking.

For me, this really helped. In fact, this has become my tradition. It means a lot to me to see his stocking still hanging there beside mine. In fact, I think it is the most active stocking hanging there.

Each year since Bruce passed has brought challenges of their own. It is always a moment by moment holiday – half survival… half celebration.

This year, however, has brought a new grief to the picture…

This year I have been blessed with a house full, as one of my daughters and my grandson now live with me. Last weekend we managed to set up the stockings, the Christmas china, several nativity sets, the Christmas village, and the tree with lights (but no decorations). It has been a festive week filled with laughter and music.

I’ve loved it. However, I’ve still had my private moments of tears… Of overwhelming memories and those moments when I know he would have loved spending this holiday with his little Boudreaux. For me this seems to always result in tears and missing Bruce down to my very core.

This weekend as we started to decorate the tree, grief reared its head again, but this time it was my grandson’s grief. As we pulled out ornaments, he wanted to hear the stories behind each one. He smiled and laughed and hung them on the tree… so excited. Until…

About halfway through the box, he pulled out an ornament with three snowmen – a Mommy, a Daddy and a baby – and under each one were their names… Just last Christmas, they had still been a family. As he held the ornament in his hands, his eyes filled with tears. Then, still clutching the ornament, he threw himself into his mother’s arms and wept.

He has only recently come to realize that divorce is forever… This has been a hard fact for him to accept. In fact, I believe he has only just started the real grief for the loss of his family as he knew it… And just like anyone grieving, he has a mix of emotions, which can be overwhelming for a little boy, especially at a moment like this.

On this particular night we held him and listened… simply listened as he cried and told us how he felt.

Then he asked if he could still hang that ornament because he loved the way it reminded him of his “old” family. I thought of Bruce’s stocking hanging just a few feet away for the very same reason… Then, my daughter and I looked at each other and without hesitation agreed.

In the days since that night, he has taken that ornament down, held it, cried and rehung it several times. It is his way of grieving this holiday… and just as I learned with my own grief…

We all have to go at it in our own way and in our own time… I still need to hang Bruce’s stocking and my grandson needs to hold an ornament… and that’s okay.

If you are struggling this holiday season, please be kind to yourself. Do what you feel is right for you… and simply let the rest go.

If you are struggling with celebrating the holidays after your loss, please let us all be there for you. If you have any ideas that have helped you through the holidays, please share them here for others. This is our community… Let’s reach out and be the compassion we each seek.

To share your thoughts and experiences go to the comments and leave your message.*

This is a weekly blog, for daily affirmations we have a Facebook page of the same name. Join us daily at www.facebook.com/peaceloveandgrief

* Be advised that all comments are subject to approval prior to posting. Any comments determined to be spam or not in accordance with the mission of this website/blog will not be approved or posted. Furthermore, any comments determined to be hostile in nature will be reported to the proper authorities. Thank you.