This post started out as a comment at Glow. Julia is kindly checking in with us about this winter and its discontents. I realized I have some stuff to say, so I figured I'd say it here too. Also, I'm trying on some blue, for my Blue Christmas, and for the thin air, and for the stars in a winter sky...
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I am hating this month. My husband cried because we had our first real snow, and he will never get to play in it with his baby daughter.
I tried to be a normal person by attending a holiday party and cried over the brownies that I was supposed to bring but totally ruined. That kind of stuff used to be easy for me.
We have been reading Chicken.Soup.for.the.Soul: Christmas.Treasury.for.Kids. There's a story for each day in December, and reading them over dinner each night is one of Lilly's favorite holiday traditions. Bitter, bitter, bittersweet. When we read them I pretty much just think about how there should be a baby on my lap.
I don't really want to put up a tree and decorations. But I think we will feel worse if we don't.
We went to Lilly's Christmas musical at church and I "remembered" - duh! - that the Christmas story is primarily about the arrival of a BABY. So there's lots of that to look forward to.
I would like December to be over. I often struggle this time of year; I remember the idyllic Christmases of my childhood, which dissolved through my fingers when my parents divorced. With no anniversary to mark the death of my first family, I tend to grieve it at Christmas.
My family life was reborn, and I grew to appreciate its multifaceted forms. With the sudden burst of many neices and nephews on to the scene, this season took on a new hue. And now I can make a holiday for Lilly.
For myself, I had been able to find moments of peace, introspection, coziness, laughter, beauty. I like to do nothing--to light candles, to cook, to read, to enjoy the stillness that comes as Winter Solstice approaches.
This year, I dread the stillness and cannot weave my way into it with any peace. Yet I also deeply resent all the required busyness. I long for the love of my family. But I know that Christmas with all the little children will break my heart. This is unsolvable. This is my first Christmas without my baby.
On Christmas night we will have dinner with family and friends in a familiar place. I am hoping the well worn paths of routine and safe tradition will help keep me stitched together. After Christmas we will go to my mother's. She will make a holiday there even if I fail to pull one together here. Her friend is loaning my family a small house on a lake for a few days where we can have some peace and alone time when the family scene gets to be too much. I know we will be looked after.
The thing is, in this season of joy and giving, I have no joy to give. I hope that will be okay with everyone. I just want to keep my head down and get it over with. After Christmas we have the New Year and my birthday (happy 38), and then February and our Angel's anniversary. I just want it to be Spring.
Thursday, December 10
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6 comments:
Jenni, of course it's okay to feel like you have no joy to give. I would hope everyone in your life would realize how difficult this Christmas will be without your little girl. I hope that it's bearable, and that you can spend some peaceful moments in the house by the lake when it all becomes too much. Sending you love during this difficult season and hope for a quickly arriving Spring. xo
I hope you can make the time to be sad when you need to.
Hanging on with you and wishing you peace.
xxx
Big love to you, Jenni. The first Christmas without them is awful. No other way around it.
xo
I hear you, Jenni. So tough. x
Ah, Jenni. I'm so with you on just getting through December 2009. It's hard to make it a happy time for the surviving sibling(s), isn't it? I'm finding it to be because I feel anything but at times. Other times I'm okay. Thinking of you and hoping those around you are understanding in the weeks ahead. (((Hugs)))
Jenni~
I think the holidays are SO hard. We first found out about Micah's problems just before Thanksgiving so this time of year will always have a certain air of grief for me. And the first year without them is SO SO HARD!!!
I think you have to find the moments that bring you the peace that you need. I remember driving around with my husband looking at Christmas lights just thinking and trying to let God's peace permeate my soul. Be introspective if that helps. Cry, put up a stocking for her (I know Christmas is already over, but still...). Celebrate her life and place in your family even though she is not here. And carve out the time you need to stay sane and salvage whatever joy is to be had. :) Your family will totally get it. And even if they don't, it is what you need.
I hope you can find some peace and joy this season. Blessings and prayers for you!
Farrah
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