CHRISTMAS

This is the biggie.... the holiday everyone who has lost someone warns you about, dreads, and as awful as it may sound loathes. Holidays - especially Christmas - is a time for family. When your family isn't here it can color everything with a shade of melancholy. Yes I said melancholy. I don't think I have ever truly experienced the full meaning of that word until now. The trick with holidays is to pepper your sadness with new memories of gladness.

As with everything then, we approached Christmas with good and bad. I was to be truthful a lot out of sorts. I was angry. I will just put it out there... angry. I didn't spend my whole Christmas holiday in a tizzy but some of it. Sometimes I don't even really know why I'm angry, just that I am. I will compare myself to a porcupine with her quills up. Just like life with cancer, life with grief is a roller coaster and sometimes the anxiety of the clack clack clack as you go up the hill makes you want to jump out of your seat.... you forget how fun the ride downhill from the top is.

Christmas Eve we spent at my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house having snacks and visiting. This was one of Tyler's favorite traditions as he has several cousins around the same age as him and they grew up together. It was hard going without him. I kept thinking this time last year we were loading him up with his recliner to go over there. I love my nieces and nephews a great deal, but sometimes it is hard to look at them and not see what should have been. I saw Kristin with her husband expecting their first child, Derek and his new wife still in their newlywed stage, Jesse at 20 with the world by the tail, Kari getting ready for graduation in the spring. These kids especially bring home the things that I will not have with Tyler. They make me wish for impossible things while at the same time so very happy for the lives they have. There is no better definition of "bittersweet." My sister-in-law who lost her mother to cancer months before Tyler put it simply "some things just will never be the same." And they won't.  My last entry I talked about warring within myself between accepting sadness as part of me instead of trying to rid myself of it. This is a good example. I am sad, I am mad, I am lost - that doesn't mean that I am not also happy and grateful for the family I still have. These feelings are not mutually exclusive of each other - they are companions in my heart.

Carter and Cassie both missed their brother but had a good Christmas also. Their Christmas gift was basically our trip to Mexico, but I did fill their stockings - which is a big tradition at our house - and they got one present. Jay was even caught on film playing Dance Dance Revolution and I will be selling those pictures to the highest bidder. Our trip to Mexico was fantastic. We left in a snow storm and our return was delayed by 3 days because of a snow storm - gotta love Minnesota. Regardless, we had a lot of fun in the sun. The boys got to catch a couple ocean fish, Cassie got to swim like a fish, and I got to read 3 books on my Kindle. All in all a successful week. Beach time is not Jay's favorite type of activity but he was a good sport anyway. We thought of Tyler often - as always - and had a family picture taken with our Tyler Toy t-shirts.

I will close with this. For those of you who have lost someone close to you with Christmas feeling a little empty, the memories we have of those who have gone before us are the best presents all tied up with pretty bows. They are gifts we can open everyday and still they can be found to open up tomorrow. These gifts are so precious and without a cost, yet no amount of money would we sell them for. They can comfort us, make us laugh, make us cry, and are only lost if we choose to let them be. Don't let your memories be put in a closet and covered with dust. Don't be afraid to open them and experience both the pain and joy they bring.