This is from my personal blog that I wrote some time ago. Since then I have added to it. In light that some of you have lost a loved one recently or in the past, I am posting this for you. I love you all and I understand your pain. I hope maybe this can help get you through some of your hurt.
GRIEVING AT CHRISTMAS
Grieving at Christmas
Its a difficult thing to do; another hurdle to tackle in this big ole world of ours.
Everyone is missing someone at Christmas. Everyone.
You feel like you are empty, expressionless, biding your time treading water, and youre tired, so very tired. Santa be darned and the whole thing too. You cant participate or at the very least youd like to just stay in bed and wait for the whole thing to go away. You dont know how to act in front of your friends, and maybe even your own family. So you put on airs and muddle through. But the truth is, no one knows how you really feel and ache, except the one you lost who is up above.
This Christmas you are feeling the loss of someone, we all are. Whether it be your loss from many years ago, or a loved one who recently left, the pain is there.
Some may choose to turn their backs on the holidays a little bit or completely such as we tried to do that fateful year. That was the only way we really knew how to get past it; dont make too big of deal of it and pretend it was just another day. It was right for us at that time. But after that year, it would no longer be fitting for us to renounce Christmas but rather to
embrace it and hold its memories close and dear. Difficult? Oh yes.
Did we pick ourselves up by the bootstraps to carry on? No, no bootstraps, just knowing if we were to survive, there could be no repetition of Christmas 2006 again.
Michael loved Christmas more than anything. He was no angel but he was generous, giving and helpful all year round, not just for the season.
In 2006 when Michael was taken from us so unexpectedly, so very violently, we didn't have much of a Christmas that year. I brought out the small Nativity and set it up on the little table; then only handful of small decorations, just what I could carry down in one bag from our storage loft. We put up a tree and decorated it half-heartedly, not really caring about it either. For a home that decorates to the 9s inside and out, this was our attempt not to ignore the holidays, but who were we kidding? No one. You have never seen 3 people so miserably pathetic in your lives such as us. Our relatives and friends were very compassionate and good to us, while we still went through the motions with heart ache and sadness.
We took our annual family picture by the tree with very red sore teary eyes as I held his picture in my hands. It was horrible. The worst picture of what was left of our family that had ever been taken.
It rained that Christmas night. It was like the raindrops were Michaels tears weeping for us from above. I stood out on the front lawn getting soaking wet looking towards where the usual lights and decorations that once had graced the front of our farm were missing. My face was combined with his tears and mine flowing like a river. For one very brief minute, I felt my hair being stroked and his arm around me. It was like he was breathing new air into me.
Maybe that was a sign or something, I don't know what it was, my imagination or a dream, but I knew we could not loose Christmas because we lost Michael. He would never want that for us. I never want my family to have another painful Christmas like that ever again.
You have to do what you have to do to get through the holidays your way. Its your choice and its personal. Theres no right or wrong to it. You have to find your comfort zone and give yourself time to find a new way to get through it and a new way to welcome memories yet to come. It wont be easy and never will be the same but yes, there will be new memories even if they are small; take them. Take these holidays in stride and not hate it, or be scared to face it. There will be a way to combine the old with the new eventually. Dont plan it; just let it happen. Let it unfold the way it will. Give yourself time and whatever space you need. If you shun your friends for a while, real friends will understand and know to back off; just dont forget to reach out to them when you are ready. With me, my friends saved my life because its no secret that I was on suicide watch for many months.
Now at Christmas Im still big on tradition but I have changed a few things around. I have a few new pieces to decorate with, and moved some of the old things from their usual display place to somewhere else. Instead of using fake snow, I went to table runners. Instead of using all green garlands in the home, Im using red and gold. Just changing some little things that only I would probably notice, is a step for me. I disposed of some broken and tattered things finally which helped me learn how to let go a little bit in another way, although some things will never change.
We are lighting up our lawn brighter and better than ever for as many more years as we can. When Michael looks down upon us now he is telling his heavenly friends Thats my home, the one that is all lit up so brightly; and thats my family inside watching Christmas movies. I know he giggles each time we blow a fuse.
There will be lights. There will be decking the halls. There will be opening up a few presents under the tree. And yes, there will always be tears, but thats ok as we remember, the first gift of Christmas was a child.
Merry Christmas
Be good to yourselves.
Michael's Noelle, a special song written for Michael to pay tribute at Christmas
GRIEVING AT CHRISTMAS
Grieving at Christmas
Its a difficult thing to do; another hurdle to tackle in this big ole world of ours.
Everyone is missing someone at Christmas. Everyone.
You feel like you are empty, expressionless, biding your time treading water, and youre tired, so very tired. Santa be darned and the whole thing too. You cant participate or at the very least youd like to just stay in bed and wait for the whole thing to go away. You dont know how to act in front of your friends, and maybe even your own family. So you put on airs and muddle through. But the truth is, no one knows how you really feel and ache, except the one you lost who is up above.
This Christmas you are feeling the loss of someone, we all are. Whether it be your loss from many years ago, or a loved one who recently left, the pain is there.
Some may choose to turn their backs on the holidays a little bit or completely such as we tried to do that fateful year. That was the only way we really knew how to get past it; dont make too big of deal of it and pretend it was just another day. It was right for us at that time. But after that year, it would no longer be fitting for us to renounce Christmas but rather to
embrace it and hold its memories close and dear. Difficult? Oh yes.
Did we pick ourselves up by the bootstraps to carry on? No, no bootstraps, just knowing if we were to survive, there could be no repetition of Christmas 2006 again.
Michael loved Christmas more than anything. He was no angel but he was generous, giving and helpful all year round, not just for the season.
In 2006 when Michael was taken from us so unexpectedly, so very violently, we didn't have much of a Christmas that year. I brought out the small Nativity and set it up on the little table; then only handful of small decorations, just what I could carry down in one bag from our storage loft. We put up a tree and decorated it half-heartedly, not really caring about it either. For a home that decorates to the 9s inside and out, this was our attempt not to ignore the holidays, but who were we kidding? No one. You have never seen 3 people so miserably pathetic in your lives such as us. Our relatives and friends were very compassionate and good to us, while we still went through the motions with heart ache and sadness.
We took our annual family picture by the tree with very red sore teary eyes as I held his picture in my hands. It was horrible. The worst picture of what was left of our family that had ever been taken.
It rained that Christmas night. It was like the raindrops were Michaels tears weeping for us from above. I stood out on the front lawn getting soaking wet looking towards where the usual lights and decorations that once had graced the front of our farm were missing. My face was combined with his tears and mine flowing like a river. For one very brief minute, I felt my hair being stroked and his arm around me. It was like he was breathing new air into me.
Maybe that was a sign or something, I don't know what it was, my imagination or a dream, but I knew we could not loose Christmas because we lost Michael. He would never want that for us. I never want my family to have another painful Christmas like that ever again.
You have to do what you have to do to get through the holidays your way. Its your choice and its personal. Theres no right or wrong to it. You have to find your comfort zone and give yourself time to find a new way to get through it and a new way to welcome memories yet to come. It wont be easy and never will be the same but yes, there will be new memories even if they are small; take them. Take these holidays in stride and not hate it, or be scared to face it. There will be a way to combine the old with the new eventually. Dont plan it; just let it happen. Let it unfold the way it will. Give yourself time and whatever space you need. If you shun your friends for a while, real friends will understand and know to back off; just dont forget to reach out to them when you are ready. With me, my friends saved my life because its no secret that I was on suicide watch for many months.
Now at Christmas Im still big on tradition but I have changed a few things around. I have a few new pieces to decorate with, and moved some of the old things from their usual display place to somewhere else. Instead of using fake snow, I went to table runners. Instead of using all green garlands in the home, Im using red and gold. Just changing some little things that only I would probably notice, is a step for me. I disposed of some broken and tattered things finally which helped me learn how to let go a little bit in another way, although some things will never change.
We are lighting up our lawn brighter and better than ever for as many more years as we can. When Michael looks down upon us now he is telling his heavenly friends Thats my home, the one that is all lit up so brightly; and thats my family inside watching Christmas movies. I know he giggles each time we blow a fuse.
There will be lights. There will be decking the halls. There will be opening up a few presents under the tree. And yes, there will always be tears, but thats ok as we remember, the first gift of Christmas was a child.
Merry Christmas
Be good to yourselves.
Michael's Noelle, a special song written for Michael to pay tribute at Christmas
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