We survived the holidays. Although, survived is not a word I particularly like. I watched a reel on Instagram this morning of a woman talking about the loss of her son, and how so many people say to her they don’t think they could survive the loss of a child. She said she used to say I don’t know how I’m surviving either. But now, she understands she didn’t survive. You don’t survive a loss like that. You transform into someone else. I agree with that. I didn’t survive Andrew’s death. I’m not the person I used to be. One day you are someone and then you are someone else.
Turns out, our holidays didn’t survive either. Last year, when our loss was a gaping wound, we skipped the holidays. For Thanksgiving, we outsourced our meal, gathering at a local hotel that offered turkey and all the fixings surrounded by mid-Century modern décor and enough suspension of disbelief for us to survive the day. For Christmas, we left the decorations in the garage, skipped the gift giving part, and flew to Oklahoma, crashing holiday festivities we haven’t been a part of in years, wrapping ourselves in the love of family. It reminded me of a Christmas years ago, when Lee was nearing the end of a yearlong deployment to Ramadi, and the remaining four of us spent the week at Disney World, my sister and her family altering their own Christmas traditions to join us as we pretended it wasn’t Christmas after all.
So this, in many ways, was our first holiday season without Andrew. After weighing and finding outside options for Thanksgiving dinner too expensive and understanding that total avoidance didn’t feel quite right either, we decided we’d just do it. Lee made the turkey breast and cranberry sauce as well as the mashed potatoes and gravy. He threw in a broccoli cheese casserole, an old dish of his mom’s we used to make but haven’t in years. I made the stuffing, one of Rachel’s favorite’s called confetti corn, and on a last-minute whim, chocolate chip cookie pie, one of Andrew’s favorites. Another of his favorites, sweet potato casserole, may make a showing again in the future, but I cannot make it yet. Rachel brought rolls, Elisabeth brought desserts. All set.
Not quite. I thought food was the problem, but the gnawing question for me became where we would eat. We don’t eat much at our dining room table anymore. We have an island, but often, we just eat on the couch in front of the TV (sorry Mom) but for special dinners, like Thanksgiving, we eat at the table, together. I did not think I could do it. Also, the dining room table had become a de facto shrine. Centered around the urn with Andrew’s ashes was a variety of items given to us or collected over the year. To eat at the table I would need to move them. How? Where? Saying out loud that I wasn’t sure if I could sit at the table felt silly, maybe even dramatic, but no one made me feel that way. As I made my way upstairs to shower and get ready for the day, I was still unsure what we would do. Out of the shower, wrapped in my robe, blow dryer in hand, I felt Andrew’s message to me. Don’t make it weird. Four words that came thru as clearly as if he’d said them aloud. I could see that through Andrew’s eyes the idea that we would sit anywhere other than the table for Thanksgiving dinner was, well, just weird. Oh, and lose the shrine.
For Christmas, as I pondered to tree or not to tree, Elisabeth said, mom, if you go into the garage to get the tree and you don’t want to put up the tree, then don’t. At every step, it’s up to you. Yes. Up to me. My therapist agreed. Early in December I asked Lee what he thought about the tree. He said he thought it’d be nice and I agreed. It was nice. There is something so peaceful about the lights of the tree, softly glowing in the early morning hours of coffee consumption and NYT games playing.
We made adjustments in this new holiday of ours, some intentional, others situational but they informed how we celebrated, transformed, survived:
- No stockings. I understood immediately. I couldn’t hang them and leave Andrew’s empty. I couldn’t not hang his up. So, stockings were out and stocking bags were in. Cheap, purchased-at-Michael’s, Christmas gift bags with gingerbread men and trees and softly falling snowflakes would be our stand-in for stockings.
- Christmas Day would not be Christmas Day. We’ve done this before, adjusting for work schedules and our kids’ partner’s families, and so we opened our gifts on Saturday, December 27th. On the 25th, Elisabeth was in Charlotte with Michael’s family and Rachel was in Greenville with Ginny’s. Lee and I ate cinnamon rolls and watched Love Actually for the first time, (yes Dana, the first time!), and ate Indian food in Chapel Hill for Christmas dinner, with so many other people.
- When we gathered to open our gifts Elisabeth and Rachel suggested we roll dice instead of going by age, oldest to youngest or youngest to oldest, as we’d always done before. It was the adjustment I needed before I even clocked that I did.
When I was a young officer’s wife with two small kids, we moved to 29 Palms, CA. If you’ve never been to 29 Palms it’s an isolated desert town populated by Marines and, only my guess, people hiding out. We lived there some 30 years ago and felt like we had a real shot at seeing someone profiled on America’s Most Wanted. The message for Marine Corps wives, at least wives in the world of early 90s officer’s wives’ coffees (if that makes no sense to you, wait for my book, you can read more about it then) was to bloom where you are planted. This is premium messaging. It encourages you to stop complaining about where you are, just accept it, and move on. Yes, you’d rather be stationed at Camp Pendleton, by the beach, but you are in the desert and, you can still enjoy your life. It was at this same duty station, where Lee was gone more than he was home, training somewhere on that vast base, that I learned one of my first major life lessons: don’t wait your life away. These two ideas are really the same: live your life. It’s more challenging than it’s ever been as I embrace the reality of my situation, one that won’t change. To not just be alive, but to live.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate your time.
Before you go…when a friend of mine asked me on Christmas Eve if we had plans for the day, I told her I was trying to embrace the quiet and the slow. I didn’t think much before typing it out but it’s true, and it’s hard. I’m trying to allow myself to be quiet, slow, and bored more often than is comfortable. Being busy keeps my mind occupied. But I find that the times that I can most feel Andrew occur when my mind is unengaged: blow-drying my hair, walking the dog, watching birds, watering plants, driving my car. In this world of maximum optimization it’s routine, mindless, everyday things for the win.
Before You Grow Up 