The First Christmas After You Lose Someone is Hard

 The first Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  You won't feel like celebrating but you will go through the motions  for the kids and your family.  It will hurt every moment.  You will focus on the presents you are not buying.  You will focus on the chair that won't be sat in.  The jokes that won't be told.  The rituals that will fall by the way side.  The memories of past Christmases will suck the joy out of the whole Christmas season.  But, you will get through it.  Someone in your life might be brave enough and kind enough to ask you questions about who you lost.  You will smile and cry as you talk about the good times and even the sad times. You will cherish all of it because it was still better when they were there.  You know they would want you to go on and create new memories.  But, the first Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  

The second Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  You won't feel like celebrating but will go through the motions.  

The third Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  You will find a "Blue Christmas" event because you are searching for some way to reframe your pain and begin to feel joy, but not for you, for your family.

The fourth Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  The fifth Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  The sixth Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  The seventh Christmas after you lose someone is hard.

The eighth Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  You start losing your patience all the time because this seems to be your reality and you can't imagine living every Christmas with this much grief.  

The next is just my experience.  The ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth Christmases after you lose someone is hard.  

The eighteenth Christmas after you lose someone is surprising.  You actually feel joy, a feeling that comes out of nowhere.  You just feel light and celebratory and you don't feel guilty because you know that the person you lost is up there cheering for you.  And, just when you feel like happiness throughout your entire body, something happens and you end up losing someone else you love.  And, it happens on the same day that you experienced unbearable loss 18 years ago.  So, now, in addition to grief, December 23 becomes your most feared day of the year.  It starts all over again.

The first Christmas after you lose someone is hard.  You won't feel like celebrating but will go through the motions for the kids, the family.  It will hurt every moment. You will focus on the presents you aren't buying.  You will focus on the chair that is empty.  You will focus on the jokes that won't be said.  The rituals that will fall by the way side.  The sadder thing is that you have been through this before.  You know you are in for a world full of hurt for a long time.  

But, now you are older.  You just start losing more people in your life, and after every loss, the first Christmas after is hard.  

The holiday season is wonderful, a time for peace and joy.  Yet, there always seem to be scrooges out there that seem to want to trample on the joy of others.  Feel sorry for those scrooges.  They may not have a choice.  They may be struggling so much they don't know how to keep things together.  Give them grace even though they may not be able to extend it back.  

Trust me, I know of what I speak.  Christmas can be impossibly hard.