It has been a whirlwind of a season. When the holidays came around this year I told myself I would focus more on being present for the twins than worrying about to-do lists. I told myself I would focus on letting myself feel the grief I needed to during this time rather than pushing it down. And that has been what I allowed myself to do. Our calendar has been filled with so many activities, old and new. Traditions we did with Erik and ones we now do to honor him. This season has been different than the last two without him. The twins are more aware this year that Dad is missing. So as the holidays came around more talk about him presented itself. Mostly as we were doing activities as a family. Today is one example of the many activities that have been progressively getting emotionally harder as time goes on.
Today I took the twins to the holiday tea time with Santa and Mrs. Claus. All the activities with the twins have touched a cord, but in a good way that I didn’t imagine it would. As overwhelmed as I feel as a solo parent trying to do it all, seeing their excitement in each activity or the way their eyes light up when they have these experiences makes up for any feelings I might be dealing with. It’s been hard trying to learn that I don’t have to do it all, but acknowledging it has definitely helped. It has been hard dealing with the feelings of doing it without Erik, mostly lately because now the twins are aware of doing things without dad which just empathizes it more for me. I had one of those frozen-in-time moments today where I didn’t know how to react. When we got up to see Santa today the twins were excited as they normally are just talking to him about everything and anything. Then there it was. “Santa, I want my daddy,” said Charlotte. Santa none the wiser asked her where her dad was. And before I could jump in or give any warning Charlotte said, “My daddy is dead. But I want him. I told the elf on the shelf that I want my daddy. Mama said I can tell the elf my wishes.” I froze. Not sure if I let her continue talking or if I should have jumped in as Santa and Mrs. Claus looked up at me with the very confused, awkward, not knowing what to do look. And she continued talking. “The elf has magic from you Santa. And I want my daddy. Is daddy coming home?” “Yeah we told our elves we want daddy,” Wyatt then said. Santa, now probably feeling very very awkward says to them, “I’m very sorry to hear about your Daddy, I’ll see what I can do.” And just like that I snapped out of my frozen state. “Sorry babes, Santa can’t bring Daddy back. I know you miss him but he’s not coming back. There’s nothing Santa can do.” I heard the shifting in the seats as I could tell both Santa and Mrs. Claus were uncomfortable. But I could not go back down that rabbit hole. I could not have them thinking there was hope yet again that their dad was coming back, because he’s not. And Charlotte looked at Santa most likely trying to see if he would confirm what I said and then just like that, she changed the subject. She started talking to him about seeing all the characters yesterday at the breakfast with Mickey and continued to ramble on about that as Wyatt started to chime in on it too. Yet there I stood, still with my stomach in knots and still not believing that just happened. Here I am writing this, still with my stomach in knots and still not believing that this is our reality.
