It’s hard to believe that it has been almost 10 months since Jeremy left us and 2020 started it colossal spiral downward. I have had people asking how I am doing and so I thought I would check in with everyone. Plus I am finding sharing my heart with you all here, is healing. It helps me put words and clarity to some of the thoughts and feeling that seem to be swirling about in my heart and head.
I have been dreading this season, not wanting to walk it, but knowing the only way to healing is to walk through it. Maybe even limping through it. Maybe even crawling through it some days. But in order for healing, I…we… have to move through it. Embracing what we can and recognizing what we just do not have the capacity for and being ok with that.
Moving into last year’s Christmas season, I had a similar dread to this year by experiencing anticipatory grief. Knowing it would be our last Christmas together. Wanting to do every last tradition and savor it. Jeremy was upset that he had not bought me a present. I told him all that I wanted from him to be present for Christmas, knowing that it was going to take everything out of him to do so. I asked him to do it for the kids. That that was all that I wanted. And he did. I don’t know if he knew how much it meant to me. I think he did. I watched him put so much effort into it and a few times I wondered if I had asked too much of him. He was too sick to do all our traditions, but we adapted so that we could still do them. Eli offered to hold his sister up to put the star on the tree, as it was her year, though Uncle Joe had to assist. We made gingerbread houses together for the first time. It was an activity that Daddy could participate in. On Christmas Eve, we headed out to visit a light display that a local family put on in their front yard. It was something that Jeremy had discovered the year we moved to the farm and so the tradition had started. He wanted to take the truck and my heart broke when he could not get up into the truck and needed Uncle Joe to practically pick him up and place him in it. I still do not know why he insisted that we take the truck that night. Maybe because all his trips in the CRV had been to doctor visits, hospital visits and procedures. Maybe he wanted to forget and be in the moment. He stayed in the truck while I got out with the kids to explore the displays, though the kids were given strict instructions not to touch anything so we would not pick up any germs and bring home to Daddy… and that was even pre-COVID. After, as my sister, brother-in-law, and parents went to pick up our Indian food order (a recent Christmas Eve tradition), we drove to watch another light display. I remember seeing the silhouette of his head as he stared out his window at the lights dancing to the music playing on our radio. I remember thinking, “Oh God, I don’t think I can do this.” It wasn’t the first time I had cried out to God with those words since his diagnosis though. This time it was about this year and what we would have to face. The grief had already started. Later, after eating our dinner and the kids getting into their Christmas jammies, we sat down to read the Christmas story for our Jesse Tree. Typically, Jeremy had read the stories each night, but the kids had taken up reading every night for him, but I asked Jeremy if he wanted to read the last night. I videoed him reading it, knowing it was going to be the last time he would read it to our kids and I wanted to preserve that for them. I have only watched that video once… recently…and it undid me. Looking at what cancer had taken from him…and was taking from us. Remembering all I was feeling in that moment as he read. Remembering how I was also thinking about this Christmas. Knowing what this season would bring.
And I am finding it is bringing what I was dreading. I am trying to continue our traditions, adapting as we go. We created our gingerbread houses again and the kids laughed and reminisced on last year’s houses, agreeing that Daddy’s had been the best. They hung his stocking up when we decorated. Uncle Ray and Uncle Joe, once again, made sure our house was decorated with lights like he did every year for the kids. Charlie, the elf, was still brought out since my youngest insisted and her brother has taken over the last couple nights on hiding him for her to find, since I am bad about remembering to do it. We will continue to do the things that we normally do even if we have to adjust as we go, knowing that they will bring healing. We will come up with a few more ways to keep Jeremy very much a part of our Christmas though his physical presence is missing.
