This time of year is especially difficult for grieving mothers. It is all about family gatherings, good times, food, fellowship and lots of memories. It is a time when we stop working and we gather at each others houses and we try to put aside differences to be together for the holidays. For the grieving mother however this takes on a whole new meaning as we know we can never have our entire family together again for the holidays. The Norman Rockwell picture of everyone seated around the holiday table while mom brings in the big turkey will never happen in our lives again. We are always the one on the outside looking through the window at other families that have everyone together.
The holidays for me as a grieving mother have been especially difficult we go right from Thanksgiving into Heather's birthday on December 10th, and then into Christmas. Depression usually hits in between Halloween and Thanksgiving and stays until after the first of the year. But this year seems to be a little bit different with my new job. I think that I have been so busy working and then trying to get a jump on setting up Christmas before the Thanksgiving shopping weekend that I haven't really had time to think about what's coming up. However something happened on Friday that shouldn't really have affected me but because of the season that it is it sent me into a depression that I am now trying to fight off. To anyone else this would not have been a big deal but, to me, given the time of year and I am a grieving mother it hit me differently then it would most people. While I am not as depressed as in years past, I can certainly feel that a small amount of Mr. smelly depression has come in and settled for the holiday season.
Last October I began preparing for an all family vacation to Walt Disney World and then a short Disney cruise. I wanted to go at Christmas because even the cruise ships are decorated for Christmas plus I really wanted to see this. I decided to go during Heather's birthday time. We have friends from South Carolina that will be joining us on the special trip. Recently it dawned on me this week when I looked at my calendar countdown that we leave on December 10th and this is really a countdown to what would have been Heather's 27th birthday. While I am extremely excited about our vacation plus all of us being together as a family and making wonderful memories it is still very difficult to know the one that is always missing won't be there. Now I have a daily reminder of just how many days it is till her birthday.
Nothing about Thanksgiving and Christmas will ever be the same and I should not expect more from myself than I can give. Currently it seems I am just exhausted between working, preparing for Christmas and grieving. Many grieving mothers work and I honestly do not know how they survived the first few days, weeks and months back after their child died. I am nearly 6 years down the road and I still struggle some days. But I am hoping that Heather is very proud of me for following my dream and hers to work at Disney. She loved Disney so much and I am extremely happy working for Disney. I really feel this is a perfect fit for me, but it is still exhausting. While this season is all about family, food and memories I am always thinking about the one that will be forever 21 and forever missing from my holidays.
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