Candy canes

They make your flavor now. 

Those broken firsts

The last 10 days or so have been rough.  I miss you and struggled through a lot of firsts and were also lasts.  Realizing that the McCaw Christmas was the last time I saw you and trying to smile my way, along with Zayne, through the first one without you.  Hanging your Christmas stocking and knowing that I won't be filling it full of some random gifts and candy but at the same time knowing it just wasn't right to put your's up.

It's just been a really sucky time.  New Year's Eve will be difficult and so will the anniversary of your death, but I have this thought in my head that somehow, some way, once I get past all the firsts that things will get just a little bit easier.  There will be confirmation that I was able to make it through the most difficult year of my life.  You will still be greatly missed during all those special times but I hope it will sting just a little less.  You'll never be forgotten and there will forever be a hole where you should have been.  I just hope it becomes less painful.

I placed a framed photo of you under my Christmas tree.  I've debated getting a special candle to further memorialize you at the holidays but am thinking against that.  Instead, I'm going to do a special candle but to light to stand in as you for those big days.  I'm sure I will forget to light it from time to time and will beat myself up about it but I like the idea.

I love you.  I miss you.  I wish you were still here.

The picture under my tree - you in that silly sweater that made you so happy on our last Christmas together.

Surviving the Holidays

How to Survive the Holidays when a Loved One is Missing

by Lynn Shattuck

I loathed the first Christmas after my brother died. 

I felt like the strands of jewel-toned lights were taunting me, the ads flashing symbols of family and love and togetherness. The tumbling of decades of holiday memories rising in my mind: the time my brother and I secretly opened each other’s gifts weeks before Christmas. The photos of us hunched beneath the tree, unwrapping sweaters or skis. It all felt like salt on the wound, stinging and mean. 

All I could see was what was missing—my brother. My family as I’d known it. 

To cope, my parents and I followed the advice of grief books and created new traditions. We spent Christmas morning with two women whose husbands had died within the last year. It sounds like a real party, right? Two grieving parents, a bereft sister, and two widows. But it actually was. Not having to pretend that life was shiny and tinsel-lined was a relief. Together, we agreed it was okay to hate the holidays, and with that permission hovering in the air around us, we actually found small pockets of joy. 

It was still hard and painful, and everything felt off-kilter, tilted. But we survived it. We gave each other silly gifts, and we giggled a little, and together, we wrapped gauze over that first set of holidays without our lost loves, knowing that the following year would likely be a little easier, having gotten through with our new, unwelcomed normal. 

It often feels like a lifetime since that first Christmas without my brother. Yet, the holidays still bring up a distinct sense of unease in me. All the expectations of cheer and joy and brightly wrapped gifts doesn’t make the ache in our lives go away. 

Sometimes, it simply illuminates it. 

We never get over the loss of a loved one. We get through. With time, the rawness eases. But the pain also settles into our joints, into the hollow of our bones. It is patient and stubborn. It lingers. For many of us, the holidays bring it all rushing to the surface. 

My life today is good, and one that a younger, haunted version of me couldn’t have imagined. I have two beautiful babies, a kind, funny husband, and amazing friends and family. This is not the raw, metallic grief of those early years. Yet, I still can’t totally embrace this season. I can’t string lights without those sore parts making themselves known, reminding me they’re here—still, and probably forever. 

One of the hardest lessons of my adulthood is about figuring out how to hold the dark and the light at the same time. To understand that emotions can be layered and complex, that we can be grateful and grieving, hobbled and happy, devastated and daring, all simultaneously. 

This year, I’m going to more fully invite the richness of all these feelings. The delight of smoothing snow-white frosting across sugar cookies and dusting them with ruby-colored sprinkles. The anniversary of one of my closest friend’s death that brought so many tears today. The sparkle in my children’s eyes as they make out their gift lists. The feeling of my husband’s palm. The ancient, yet ever-present loss of my baby brother. There is space for it all if, just like that first Christmas without my brother, I allow it. 

I am overflowing. 

May this season be rich and real. May we not need to hide from our sadness, our longing, or our goodness. May we find space for all of this to mingle. May we feel it all, brightly, achingly, deeply.

I miss the me I was when you were here

Still search

Hey

Hey little one...it's been a while since I wrote you.  It's not that I'm not thinking of you because not a day goes by that you don't cross my mind.  The holidays are here and everything is getting damn hard and painful again.  I so miss you...your laugh...your smile...your voice...everything.

Thanksgiving was hard.  I didn't think it would hit me so hard but it did.  I predict Christmas will be even worse.

In other news, we have a Oompa Loompa as our president-elect.  Yes, Trump won.  Still cannot believe it.  You would be livid.  I just don't know what the man can do that is positive for our country.  He already appears to bigoted and hateful.  While I hate that you aren't here, I couldn't imagine your free, sassy, spirit thriving under his rule.  I hope I'm overreacting and know that only time will tell.

I'm going to write more.  Hell, if I wrote about you each time I thought about you, this blog would have so many entries.  I love you, Kyah.  To the moon and back.