Holiday Musings; Loss Mom Style

20 days til Christmas. So ensues the mass amounts of holiday cheer and articles about mothers enjoying their family and then the few I see about loss mothers and how they get by. 

My take on it is similar. I guess a lot of people expect you to be over it. Over it in a couple months. Over it after you're pregnant again. Over it after you have your rainbow. I guess if I'm doing okay on the outside, that I'm bound to be fine on the inside, right? I'm putting on a happy face for my children, for my patients, for my coworkers, so obviously I am not still struggling. 

News flash. I'll never be over it. 3 kids later and I won't be. 25 Christmases later and I won't be. Because she won't be those kids and because she's still not here for Christmas. Try swallowing the pill that your baby won't be here for Christmas ever. 

Don't expect much of me around holidays. I do good to put up decorations and to function for the sake of my boys. Don't expect me to excitedly attend holiday functions or family gatherings. Remember, a huge chunk of my family is gone. And if staying home with the remainder of my family is what heals me, that's what I'll do. Normal people don't want to sit around alone on the holidays, let alone me. If I stay home while everyone else goes, it reminds me just how alone I can really be. So sometimes I force myself to go. Then usually I receive no recognition of her by whoever I'm around or I'll receive a comment that was well meaning but just jabs me in the heart. Like how I "have 2 beautiful boys" or a comment on how they can't believe I'm not done having children yet. 

Don't look at me weird when I say I can't listen to certain songs at any given time. Or that I don't want to watch certain things on tv. For gods sake it took me 6 months to watch Greys anatomy again. And I still don't regularly listen to one of my favorite bands because I listened to it so much with her. 

Try not to take it personally when I'm not myself for the day. Sometimes these ruts aren't exactly simple to get out of. Or when I'm just not on my game at something. 

There's a reason why I just have to buy this one little thing that looks like it holds no relevance. To color this page, before the days out.. To up and go somewhere now, even though it wasn't in the plans. Why I wore what I wore. Why I won't take these bracelets off. When she calls to me, I go. 

I still pull into my driveway some nights and cry for 30 minutes while listening to Emma's playlist before coming inside after work. I'm not sure that will ever stop happening. 

I still go to the graveyard and I still always say goodbye when I leave. One night I went up to straighten everything up after a wind storm and it got dark on me. For the first time I sat there after dark. Alone. I laid my phone down next to the fall arrangement that was her casket piece with the flashlight on and played her two songs. I chose "photograph" by Ed Sheeran. And then "when you come back down" by nickel creek. Few people know I went up there and just how long I stayed and what I did while I was there.  Now anyone who cares to read far enough knows. But that's what this life is all about, breaking the silence. Busting through boundaries. Creating new traditions.  

Until you're here- you can't know. So take into account when you're rolling your eyes in regards to me or something I've done, that it might have been because of her. And I would never roll my eyes at her. 

Xoxo