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.
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