Lately, I’ve been thinking about the upcoming Holiday Season, knowing full well how hard this time of year can be for many people.
This year, to sum it up in a word has been, Brutal.
I know that we all have different reasons for being down in the dumps. For the last several years, I’ve had all the everyday holiday stress, plus a little extra. And as 2020 does it’s worst, I know that there are so many people out there facing this year without someone they love. I know the hurt and dread that comes with living with grief through the holidays.
The first Christmas after my daughter's passing was a huge blur. I was still numb. The holidays caught me off guard then, and every year since. I didn’t have the heart to even put up the Christmas tree. Instead, I outlined a tree on the wall with garland and called it a day. The second year, I had to fight with myself to put up a tree. We still had a toddler in the house. I had to force myself to snap out of it for her sake. By the third year, something in me had changed. I actually wanted to put up the tree.
However, after opening the Christmas box, the memories swiftly began to pull me down back into the depths of sadness. I couldn’t allow myself to fall in after I'd just climbed out of that dark hole. Instead, we came up with a new plan. We got a new tree and all new ornaments to honor my daughter. I would never have thought in a million years that I would be sporting a PURPLE Christmas tree in the middle of my living room, but here we are. This is the second year we’ve done this, and I actually like it now.
Getting back to the reason I started writing all this in the first place, I was thinking this morning, how bad this Christmas will be for a lot of people out there this year. Some of them are people I know, people I love. This year will be their “Blur” year, and my heart aches for them.
And the thing is, you sometimes can’t tell who is having a “Blur” year. It looks like different things on different people. It doesn’t necessarily mean someone’s openly crying and mopey and looking depressed. It can look like moodiness, irritability, irrationality, numbness, apathy, or insisting they are OK when you know they aren’t. You can’t tell what a person is going through just by looking at them. And with that thought in mind, I wish everyone could be just a little kinder to each other. To borrow the phrase, everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.
This year, so many of us are fighting a battle of some kind. The shutdowns and social distancing alone make it difficult for so many. Top that with suffering the loss of loved ones, a parent, a husband, wife, a best friend, a beloved pet, it’s no wonder it’s a “Blur” year this Holiday Season.
If this is your "Blur" year, you have my sympathy and love and my full understanding. I hope next year is kinder to us all, but more importantly, I hope that people begin to be kinder to each other every day.
Edward, Joanie, Ephraim, Hector, Jackie, Peanut, Kim R, Christopher Glenn, and all those lost this year, we miss, remember, honor, and love you all.
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