Skip to main content

It's that holiday season. Again.

Now that Halloween is over, it seems that the end of the year holidays are clamoring for attention. Our stores were filled with Christmas paraphernalia before the Halloween candy and costumes even managed to walk off the shelves.  Everyone complains about it but it doesn't seem to change the mind of marketers. It only seems to spur them on. 
I've been ambivalent about the holiday marketing onslaught for years. It seems that the focus for these holidays moves a little bit more towards conspicuous consumption and away from the true Reason for the Season. For almost 10 years, Roger and I have been gradually paring down our holiday gift giving. Our "gift" to friends and family has been a donation to a worthy organization in lieu of presents, sometimes accompanied by a symbolic token representing the organization. The first year, we donated to Habitat for Humanity and made simple but artsy pictures frames out of hardware materials (washers,bolts, and nails).  Another year, everyone got a mix CD of our favorite holiday tunes and a donation to the ASPCA. The CD cover featured pictures of our favorite animals.  Another year we gave a gift to the food bank and we made homemade cookies, cocoa mixes, and other yummy treats to accompany the donation.  We hope and expect that others will do the same for us.  Fortunately, many of our family members and friends have followed suit.  I don't need much. In fact, I'm going to work diligently during my holiday break to purge some of the extra stuff that has been accumulating in my home.    

Aside from the material pressures of the season, this time of year brings a host of other challenges that have me on edge. I have felt the heaviness creeping in over the last month and yesterday it hit, full force. Since we lost Charlotte, all holidays carry with them some element of loss. Each special day spent without my daughter is a constant reminder of what was and what will never be again. I think of past celebrations with melancholy. I watch others celebrate with their children and I am full of jealousy. It is so hard to fight those feelings.  

Grief smacked me on the head yesterday as I walked through Costco, just stopping in to pick up apples, bananas, and bread. What also grabbed my attention was the holiday "stuff". Toys that I would never buy for my daughter. Beautiful dresses that she would never wear to another holiday party. Children gazing with wide eyes over the selection of items awaiting their Christmas list. Parents agonizing over whether to buy the 500 piece erector set or the 50-piece special edition Mr. Potato Head. These are choices that I no longer make. It hurts my heart. 

It's because of these feelings that I have a hard time getting into the holiday spirit. I have no desire to decorate my home. I hesitate when I receive holiday party invitations. Even if I had the budget, holiday gift giving wouldn't interest me. Holidays without Charlotte still feel empty and wrong. 

Combine those feelings with the memories of our actual events at this time of year in 2009 and you get a glorified Tsunami of Tsadness.  On this day two years ago, we heard the worst news imaginable. On November 6th, 2009 we learned the horrible truth: medical science had failed us. We had no choice but to make Charlotte comfortable and watch her die. Even now, typing those words, I cringe as I realize that truth. 

In the two months that followed, our community did everything possible to fill her short life with amazing experiences. I cherish those memories and I think of them frequently. I don't regret a single choice.

I know that there are ways to use my grief as a force for good. I suppose that I could spend the money I would reserve for Charlotte's gifts and provide a local child in need with holiday cheer.  I could decorate the house in her spirit, using the pink tree and her favorite decorations. Someday I will be ready for that. Not this year. I have not yet reached the point where giving and celebrating feels better than grief. 

I still find moments of happiness and it definitely feels good to laugh. It also feels necessary to embrace the grief. Please remember that although this season is full of joy, it also brings pain to many people. If I don't send you a holiday card or gift, please do not be offended. If I seem a little unenthused about ensuing celebrations, please understand I'm not a Scrooge. Don't mind the leaking. It's going to be there. Sometimes it hurts and sometimes it's cathartic. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Let the holiday season begin.  

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Edge of Seventeen

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9.  Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole.  There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them."    I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known.  This...
Read more

Bittersweet Sixteen

I think about Charlotte every single day. However, this time of year, I'm flooded with all kinds of memories as we commemorate the anniversary of her birth. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Sixteen.  If cancer had not taken her life back in 2010, I have a feeling I would be planning a massive birthday celebration this year. 16 always feels like a landmark year in someone's life.  I have been thinking a great deal about the last birthday party we had for Charlotte in 2009. We didn't know it at the time, but we were halfway through her treatment journey. We had been through three major brain surgeries and a few rounds of inpatient chemotherapy. Treatments were not going well. In fact, right after her birthday, we would make the trip to Houston, Texas where we would settle in for about 10 weeks of proton beam radiation treatments and a new customized chemotherapy protocol. This was the unspoken "last chance option" to beat that aggressive brain tumor into ...
Read more

It's a (not quite) Jolly Holiday

I was sitting in a doctor's office waiting room a few weeks ago. While I waited, another patient came out into the reception area to make her next appointment. The receptionist offered a few dates, including one on a Saturday. The woman (I have no idea who she was; let's call her Maude) originally said yes to the Saturday date. Then the following conversation ensued:  Maude: Wait! Is that Mother's Day weekend?  Receptionist: Hmm. You know what? I'm not sure. When is Mother's Day?  Maude: You don't know?  Receptionist: (nervous laugh) Well, I guess I should know this.... Maude: Are you a mother?  Receptionist: No.  Maude: But...you have a mother, right? You should know these things!  At this point, I was incensed with "Maude". This woman knew nothing about the receptionist. She could have recently lost a child. She could have been struggling with infertility. She could have had a mother who recently died. Or she could have a strained or just very compli...
Read more