It’s the Holiday season and while I’ve been surprised by the joy that came naturally I’ve also been caught off guard by the hidden grief I had yet to uncover.
Last year when my father passed, it was just before the Christmas holiday. If you know me you know how much I absolutely love the Christmas season. After losing my dad in the middle of it, however, I thought I would never be able to approach the holiday with as much joy or happiness again. I went through the motions last year just trying to make it. It’s one of the reasons why I chose to get away to my happy place - the beach- for the Christmas holiday. I remember being so absolutely crushed and ridden with anxiety. I just could not Christmas.
This year, as we inched closer and closer to the season, I had begun to prepare myself for all of the hard emotions. However, it was approaching the Thanksgiving holiday that has surprisingly given me a much harder time.
Last Thanksgiving, I did not get to spend the holiday with my father. I recall trying to make something work with my schedule and that of my sisters and father to get us all together. Mom was planning her own gathering and it was just easier to go along with those plans rather than what I considered the trouble of having to plan another separate Thanksgiving meal. It was eventually too complicated and I gave up. It’s been one of my biggest regrets and I’d only just remembered this as I anticipated Thanksgiving in this past week or so. It’s interesting how our minds and bodies remember such things sometimes only when triggered by certain circumstances. For me, the approaching Thanksgiving holiday triggered the memories I hadn’t processed.
Cue the grief and guilt. Thanksgiving was the last holiday my father was around for and I didn’t spend it with him.
Instead, I’d see him at my nephew’s soccer game some weekend. Then that was it. No more holidays. No more birthdays. He’d be gone forever.
The complicated thing about grief is how much room it can take up during times that should typically be joyous. And I do feel that joy. But I also carry this grief of missed opportunities, holidays and celebrations we will not get to spend together.
The tension of holding both grief and gratitude this holiday season is quite thick. It’s a really sensitive time. The complexities while navigating this season can leave me feeling quite anxious in some moments and feeling in a daze during others.
When I look back on the time immediately following my father’s death, I often say how much it just felt like I was going through the motions as if in a daze. I have no real hard memories from that time and can hardly recall any details. It was not until around Spring time when it felt as though the scales began to fall off my eyes and I began to come alive again.
The biggest difference between that time and now is how much more prepared I am all these months later. Between therapy, my community and self care practices, I’ve tapped into a strength that is working to carry me through. This doesn’t mean I’m navigating this space perfectly whatsoever. Instead, I’m sort of fumbling through but the progress is real and evident and for that I am thankful. Who knows how this tension will be resolved - if ever?
Cheers to you if you are also navigating your own version of this sort of tension between grief and joy while making your way through the holidays. May the daze we feel as we go through the motions be temporary and eventually overshadowed by joy.