Here They are Again

Last year I wrote a post about the holidays.  It came across bitter, even angry, and I ended up deleting it.  I'm all about honesty and I'm making an effort to open up about real grief, but to bare the ugliness of my heart-break to the public didn't feel right either.  After all, the real benefit was in writing it down for myself, not in posting it for others to read.

But here come the holidays again, and darn it if I'm not angry again.

I think, even before our tragedy, that I always knew the holidays were particularly hard for those who had lost loved ones.  It's not like I had been immune to loss before.  Maybe because of the intensity of my sadness, I just assumed that there couldn't possibly be an event that would make my sadness stronger.  But I was wrong.

Those fantasies that I described in my previous post - they happen more frequently around the holidays.  I think again about the matching dresses I had to return last year.  The pictures we never got to take.  The gifts we never even got to buy.

Makayla never got to share a holiday with her sister.

This year, between the excitement of Thanksgiving and Christmas, we get to celebrate my sister's marriage.  What a joyous day it will be.  But you know, there's a part of me (a bigger part than I'd like to admit) that just wants there to be another flower girl waddling down that isle.

Grief is a process - so they say.  It's not a list of stages you get to check off.  Oh, they all exist - the denial, the anger, the depression - but you don't suddenly reach the "acceptance" stage and earn a grief diploma.  Trust me, I've accepted that Annabelle died.  And sometimes I'm still angry about it.  And some mornings I wake up and see her picture and I wonder - did it really happen?  And sometimes there are so many tears.

Even "process" implies some type of ending.  Losing my daughter - that will hurt until the day I die.  Yes, time will take the sting away.  But I've seen the tears of a mother 20 years later.  What heartache to lose a part of yourself.  Physically, you heal.  You develop new routines, new expectations.  You learn to thrive.  But sometimes the pain comes back.  Real, intense, overwhelming.  And sometimes you just really long to have it back - the whole life - because it was (at least in your memory) a little bit nicer.

Yeah, I'll admit it.  I wish my life were just a little nicer.  Fewer tears.  More smiles.  Tomorrow I'll think - gosh, I really could have used this moment to talk about real joy - the kind that comes from knowing that God is with me and loves me even when I'm angry and tearful and messy.  What I will say is that I'm so grateful God will let me be angry and tearful and messy for as long as it takes.

In the mean time, the days march forward whether I want them to or not and Thanksgiving - my very most favorite - is right around the corner.  The whole family will be gathered together and there will be feasting and merriment.  And we'll all miss the ones who are in Heaven.  But we'll celebrate anyway because there is so much to be thankful for.