I wrote this blog, “It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas”, in 2018. The blog highlights my first, second and third Christmases without Mike. For this year, I have added an addendum to the original piece. I updated my status to highlight the evolution of grief.
I hope this chronicle of Christmases past gives hope to other widowed people during the holidays.
~S,
This is my third Christmas without Mike. The first year, Christmas came along 6 weeks after he died and in many ways this was a blessing because I was in so much shock that nothing really phased me. I have almost no recollection of that first Christmas. And, I think this is the way it is supposed to be. I know that I cooked a complete turkey dinner, but I don’t remember who sat around my table. I can’t recall a single conversation. Not one. I don’t even know if I ate dinner.
When I think back to that first Christmas, I can not close my eyes and envision my sons opening their gifts. But, I know that they had gifts. I just have no idea what they were. And, I do not remember shopping for their gifts. Maybe I bought them online. I don’t know. I just can’t remember. (There is a theme here.). I know that I got my tree up that first year. But, I have no idea if I was helped doing this or not. I think I actually put up two tress, but I can’t be sure. Like so many things over the last 25 months, I wish I could talk to Mike about all this. But, when your person dies you lose part of your shared history. *Sigh.
Now, without Mike, I have to rely on my memories of the past. The person who shared some of the best moments of my life is dead; and without him, I am not able to confirm or deny events of our past. This is a huge loss, something I had yet to comprehend that first year without him.
Beyond dinner and having a tree or two decorated I really can’t remember anything about that first Christmas at all. Looking back, part of my lack of memory is likely due to my white wine intake. That first holiday as a widow Riesling was regularly coursing through my veins. I was in survival mode. No one was telling me what to do, because none of them had done this before. My friends still had their husbands. They had no experience to draw on. They were clueless about widowhood and so was I. Without a manual for widowhood and with no one to mentor me, I put myself into a wine induced haze for all of December starting on my birthday which landed exactly two weeks after Mike died and one week after I stood at the cemetery and buried him. After witnessing that horribly dramatic, sad and awful moment at the cemetery when the coffin lowered and TAPS played none of my friends were about to tell me not to have the wine. So, it was definitely a White Christmas that first year…
White wine or not, I do not remember Christmas shopping that year. Maybe, I had the gifts finished before Mike died – who knows? I can ask him, but since he’s died I can’t hear him the way I used to. Two years into this widow thing, I am tired of our one sided conversations. I am tired of the silence. I just want to have him here with me. I want so very much to share my life with him. But, this can never be. Now, I have cognitively accepted that the life we shared is over. However, two years later, I am still working on “accepting” Mike’s permanent absence in my heart. This remains a work in progress.
Last year marked my second Christmas as a widow. In truth it felt like my first because I really didn’t feel anything that first year. Before the second Christmas, I started dreading Christmas in July which gave a whole new cruddy meaning to “Christmas in July”. I remember I felt anxious about being without Mike over the holidays. I knew that there would be a hollowness to the entire holiday season for me and the topper would be Christmas Day. I felt like my family holidays were incomplete without him.
That second Christmas wasn’t the best; and, in truth, I barely recall it. I just remember feeling empty. This third year, Mike’s absence remains very obvious to me, but this Christmas season has been less awful for me than the first two. It is finally beginning to feel a bit “okay”.
I know that Mike is “with” me and I believe that he is around me – especially during the holidays. But, I crave his physical presence. Through all this, I have continued to talk to Mike and I know that he can “hear” me, but it’s just not the same because I do not hear him the way I used to. I miss him. And, I miss him even more during the Christmas season that draws special attention to those we Love and gathering as a Family. The Christmas Season loudly pronounces what I have lost.
This third Christmas I am much more aware of everything. I notice that I feel very different than those I am surrounded by. I feel like an outsider who is witnessing a holiday that is best celebrated as a family. I feel displaced in all this. And, I feel badly for my sons. A middle-aged Mom without a husband isn’t really what one thinks of when they think of a traditional family. In nearly all the classic Christmas movies there is a husband and a wife and an assortment of children. We are not this family. It is just the three of us. Without a man I feel out of place. There, I [email protected] said it. I want to be a strong, independent widow, but I’m not. I miss being someone’s “Wife”. I was good at it. And, I am only average at being a widow.
Widowing is lonely. It is not easy. And, it can be especially awful during the holidays. There is no way around this. I think acknowledging the terrible loneliness helps. At this point, I am beyond sugar coating any of this. I think it is best to honor our grief and the emotions we feel. I suggest that you allow yourself to feel the sharpness of the pain, all the while keeping Hope in your heart. With intention, and hard work, it is possible to live a life that is full – I KNOW this. It is possible to feel Joy and Love again if you choose to. The future will not be the one you imagined with your spouse, but it can still be something good.
For me, this Christmas, and always, I choose to focus on the LOVE and not the loss. This makes all the difference for me.
Merry Christmas and all the Best to you in the New Year.
~
Staci Sulin
Originally Written: DECEMBER 24, 2018
Update 2020:
It is December 21st when I am writing this update and I can tell you, so far, I have not felt the dread and the heaviness of Christmases past without Mike. As his widow, I feel more peace this fifth Christmas. I feel more content with my life. I feel less alone and lonely this year. And, really, I am not entirely sure why I feel less lousy during the holidays this year. I just do not really feel terribly sad this time round.
There is not one particular thing that has caused my new found lightness. Rather, I am sure that my new found contentment is born from a collection of consistent behaviours and actions. I have diligently attended to my grief for over four years; and, I suppose, now I am reaping the benefits of all this hard work.
There were plenty of nights I thought I would die of sadness. There were days I thought my loneliness would swallow me whole. But, I stayed the course. I continued to steeped myself in my grief when I thought I could not stand it a second longer. I let the sadness painfully drip from me. And, day by day I’ve slowly attempted to rebuild a new life around my grief.
It has been a process. Grieving for Mike is easily the hardest thing I have ever done. And, along the way, a lot of things have caused my grief to evolve. Things like: time, reflection, mindset, self care, and self love have all greatly contributed to my new found lightness. These practices come highly recommended – without doubt, like me, you will be better for them.
I don’t want to make this update unrealistic. Though I am more content, I am not like I was before. And, I won’t ever be. But, I am also no longer drowning in sadness anymore and this is good news for me and my sons.
I feel oddly at peace as I type this. I am starting to feel comfortable alone in my life without him.
Wow.
I never thought this day would come.
But, it is here…
I am alone. I am on my own.
And… I am okay.
I really, really am.
It has just occurred to me as I a typing this, I am crossing a new threshold in my quest to find myself in this afterlife. I have made it past some make believe point in my grief. I feel it. I have shed some of the sadness because I do not need it where I am going. It served it purpose these last four years, but I do not need to be sad like before, I’ve got other things to be now…
This is not to say I won’t be sad again. I will be. But, I will not be paralyzed by the profound, Soul crushing sadness that used to consume me. Right now, I still feel empty inside, but I am no longer Soul sad.
As this year is coming to a close, I have this sense that my grief is closing on a chapter too. My breaths are no longer shallow like they were for years. I fought long and hard to bring myself back to life and I think I am on the home stretch now. Finally, my grief is evolving into something more tolerable. This is not to suggest that I am “cured” and free of grief. This is not the case. I am forever Mike’s widow. But, I am so much more than that too. And, it is past time that I go and discover these other parts of myself.
I feel that a lot of change is going to happen between this Christmas and next. I am very excited about living forward into 2021. I can not wait to write to you again this time next year. I think I will have lots of good things to tell you about.
At last, for Mike’s Girl, All is Calm, All is Bright.
Merry Christmas from me to you,
~Staci
