Holidays

Originally Posted January 1, 2024

1,430 days.  That's how long we had to know you and love you. 446 days.  That's how long we have been without you.  My feelings are complicated, because I would never wish you back to your suffering, but the pain of being physically separated from you is excruciating and relentless.  I hid away inside our home this season, clinging to the quiet hope of Christmas.  

We honored you in ways that felt right to us.  Luminaries lit our front porch every night with their warm glow.  The backyard garden was drenched in Christmas lights and scattered with inflatables that made us think of you.  At first I wasn't sure I could, but I hung your sleigh bells on all the doors like we used to do for you -- knowing we would get a big grin whenever you heard the bells jingling during the holidays.  We made cookies, we watched old movies, we found moments of joy.  We stayed together and we made it through.

I took Santa candles to your headstone, sat with you every day, but rarely spoke.  Your Daddy and I stood silently in the glow of those candles on Christmas Eve as the snow fell quietly around us.  What is there to say anymore?  I find myself too tired and overwhelmed for words.  The weight of this loss grows heavier with time.  You're gone.  We're here.  We must endure.  There simply isn't anything else. 

I can no longer catch your scent in your room or in your clothes.  I find myself avoiding them because it's too painful to no longer find you there.  Soon your bed will go to another deserving family and then will it even be your room anymore?  When do I pack up what's left of you and put it away forever?  That seems unthinkable, so I guess I'm not ready yet.  This second year without you drives home the permanency of your absence.  I'm realizing how far I have to go without you, how long it stretches out before me, how I'm being forced into a new life without you whether I want it or not.  Above all I feel so tired, so numb, so lost.  I'm moving forward but without purpose.

Tonight we start another year, and my greatest hope is simply to endure.  The pain looms so large right now that all I can do is run from it.