Living with Grief During the Holidays
BY MEGHAN REEVE
Meg is a 34 yr old iced coffee drinking California girl living in the PNW. She is a tiny human teacher and a cheerleader for the dreams of not only the tiny humans but every human in her life. She strives to show others who they are by trying to be exactly who she is on the daily.
Before you get into reading this collection of words, I would love for you to pour yourself a cup of coffee or make yourself hot chocolate or do what I did and get a glass of Prosecco.
I’m about to delve into a subject a few weeks ago I had no idea I would have the ability to begin talking about.
I want to talk about what it looks like to be grieving during the holidays.
Spoiler alert: I have no idea what I’m doing but I figure we could go there together. I should also be honest and say that I’ve already deleted a lot of words. I’ve deleted words about tradition and creating my own, deleted words about gifts I’ve been given and recipes that have been passed down.
I deleted all those words because at the end of the day none of them felt like they mattered.
Because on October 15th, my mom died.
And this Christmas I have to figure out what it’s like to live without her.
And that’s where I’ve stopped writing every time.
Growing up I never thought my family was a family that had traditions. I never thought that we did the same things. But, obviously, as I got older, I realized we were surrounded by beautiful, unique traditions. My Aunt Ann’s pastries, Christmas Eve pajamas, my dad shaving his Santa beard off after Christmas brunch, my mom’s tamales, and my grandma always saying she had salsa but it really is a crusty half-used jar.
As I moved away and didn’t come home for Christmas, the traditions changed. My mom would send a box of the weirdest things all wrapped up- including the Christmas Eve pajamas. There was an abundance of Avon chapstick, fuzzy socks, instant coffee, popcorn, and holiday-themed dish towels.
But now, grief.
Grief is honestly what stirred me to attempt to write and to grasp an image of going home for Christmas and my mom not being there.
I know that at this moment I’m not the only one who’s trying to grasp a picture of holidays without a loved one.
It might be your mom, it might be your dad or your spouse or a child or a grandparent. It could be a close friend.
I don’t know who you are currently trying to envision your holidays without but I want you to know that I’m with you. And I want to tell you what I’m going to try my best to do.
I’m going to cry in front of the Christmas tree.
I’m going to attempt to make my mom’s fudge and I’m going to buy myself a box of pop tarts. I’m going to go home to the house I grew up in and sit in how different it feels without her. I'm going to sit in her chair and drink a Diet Coke and hold my dad’s hand. I’m probably going to make TikTok’s with my 16-year-old niece and have a drink with my newly 21-year-old niece, chat with my two 18-year-old nephews about life
I’m going to feel lonely as the only girl in my immediate family.
And then I’m probably going to cry in front of the Christmas tree again.
I’m just going to try. And when it feels too hard, or too much, or like I need to burst into tears or take a walk that’s what I'm going to do.
Because whether I like it or not, this is how it is now. My mom isn’t here. I won’t have her scrawly handwriting on a package not quite wrapped that says “open on Christmas Eve”. I won’t have a box of instant coffee I don’t know what to do with.
I won’t have my mom.
And it’s not ok. But it’s real.
I don’t know who’s gone in your life this year. I don’t know who you’re meeting the holidays without.
I don’t know who’s missing from the family picture that no one wants to actually take.
But I think I just wanted to be a voice in the conversation. I wanted you to know that I’m with you. That someone out there is also going to be crying in front of the Christmas tree out of sadness, exhaustion, loneliness and grief.
I wanted you to know that I don’t know how this is going to go. But that I am going to try to keep moving,
So to you, who is grieving during the holidays with me, I raise my glass with you in solidarity of the tears we’ve cried and I want you to know that it’s ok that it’s not ok.
And it’s ok it feels empty and unknown.
I raise my glass because I am with you.
With love,
Meg