I know this isn’t like me, to be so silent.
I was talking to a friend yesterday, and I was trying to explain my silence here. It’s a difficult thing, honestly. It’s a very real and present grief, but it doesn’t feel like it’s mine to claim – at least not in this space so much. I don’t wish to write in detail about her or the loss of her and it’s hard to write vaguely as well. There’s nothing gray and floating and wispy about this. It’s black and thick and indelible. We came home the first time and turned the calendar to November. We came home this second time, from Thanksgiving, and turned it to December, and if I thought that might be the slightest bit easier to do then I was sadly, sadly mistaken.
I’m afraid that this month will not be peppered with the ordinary photos of holiday preparations and last minute gift ideas. I’m enjoying reading about them elsewhere, from afar. Speaking of reading, I’m really enjoying my latest read “Where’d You Go Bernadette?” I read it aloud to M as we drove north last Thursday, like we used to do years and years ago, before the girls were born. I think we were a little caught off guard by how difficult that trip was going to be, and we needed a diversion to get us through the morning’s drive. It’s quite hilarious at the start, but eventually the language and the themes are best left to personal reading.
The girls are reading as well. They’ve pulled out all the snow and holiday books. I’ve made a note to round those up and write about them, to give me a little focus here. We bought a tree and I took pictures of the process, like I always do. I’ll try to remember to get those off the camera and post a few here. They will look very normal, and the girls will be smiling and cute, and we’ll eventually print them out and slide them into albums, and maybe years and years from now I won’t be able to distinguish them from the other yearly Christmas tree lot photos. Perhaps I will forget the fact that I spent the weekend walking around holiday trees dedicated to lost children, so that when the time came for us to set out and purchase ours I had to put my foot down and say no. Maybe I won’t remember the tears before and after, and how the tree stands in the corner of the living room, untouched still. It might stay that way the rest of the season, green, unlit, perfectly shaped and delightfully scented, and quiet.
Thinking of you and your family as you work through, and within, your grief.
I had a Pastoral Care professor tell me once, that it takes 2,000 days to “resume” following a major loss. In other words, it takes time. Lots of time…to not feel heavy. Or cry regularly. Or find yourself sighing. Or wonder why.
You are held gently in the hands of time and prayer and love, dear friend.