Good morning, God.
This Christmas season has continued to remind me that grief
comes in strange and unexpected ways. It’s
been two months since Shannon died, and I’ve heard from so many about the pain
that the holiday season can bring. I
braced for the worst and instead found many small, significant moments where I
missed Shannon!
I anticipated tears during the ‘decorating’ phase of
Christmas but they didn’t come. It was a
year of simplicity. I didn’t bother with
ornaments on the tree or many of the small knickknacks which usually adorned
the house. I went out by myself and got
a tree and Ben lent a hand in getting lights on it. I set out all the toy soldier Christmas sets.
A few lights went outside. Through it all I came to realize that
Christmas decorating had become a solo exercise over these past years. I decorated while Shannon napped. The difference this year was that I didn’t
feel pressure to go all out. I could
keep things simple. I had a poignant moment
while I set our mistletoe off to the side (not a lot of kissing the house this
year), but that was about it.
I anticipated a rough time in making the Christmas cookies,
but this too had become something I’d done on my own. I made a few favorites that Ben and I didn’t
want to miss and avoided some of the more annoying ones that Shannon so loved
(she had a thing for cookies that were a pain to make). Now Ben and I have a 9x13 pan of fudge to
polish off!!
Wrapping presents proved a bit annoying. Shannon had always wrapped the presents for
the family (except for my presents to her, of course). This year that new responsibility fell upon
me. I’m no ‘present wrapping artist.’ The main goal is to cover the present so
people can’t guess what it is, right?? In that I succeeded brilliantly. I missed Shannon in the process, though more
in a ‘I wish she could be here to help’ kind of way.
Writing the annual Christmas letter proved interesting as I
realized that some people receiving it only heard from us at Christmas and
would not know that Shannon had died.
After receiving a number of Christmas letters addressed to ‘Pete and
Shannon’ I felt a bit guilty sending a letter usually filled with cheer to announce
a death.
This December I grew tired of seeing jewelry commercials
with their constant portrayal of happy couples embracing and looking lovingly into
each other’s eyes. You can’t watch football in December without
it. They left me with a quiet sadness
that I no longer had that special someone to kiss on the holiday. The feeling never lingered for long.
I prepared for a really hard time in opening presents on
Christmas Eve, a time when Shannon and I would sit side by side and give each
other lovely gifts. I got through it
without tears, though my pile of presents felt ‘skimpy’ without that special
something from her (and I missed seeing her face as she opened something from
me). We had some poignant moments as I
gave Shannon’s mom the necklace that Shannon wore at the funeral, her sister
Shannon’s favorite ‘magic warming blanket,’ and her dad a little toy soldier
nurse set from Shannon’s collection. I
had bits of sadness, but not a lot of grief.
Surprisingly the moments that hit me the hardest in the
Christmas season came during some of my favorite Christmas carols at the
Christmas Eve worship service. Words that I usually sing with great gusto stuck
in my throat as tears quietly streamed down my face:
Sing, choirs of
angels, sing in exaltation.
Sing , all ye citizens
of heaven above.
Glory to God in the
highest
O come let us adore
him.
Shannon now joins those citizens of heaven above, singing
the same song!
Holy infant, so tender
and mild,
sleep in heavenly
peace.
Shannon now sleeps in God’s peace.
I came into the Christmas season expecting to be crushed by
the weight of grief. It didn’t
happen. Instead I found many small
moments of quiet longing. I’m constantly
reminded that grief can’t be planned or expected. It comes on its own schedule in its own
way. For me there have been brief moments
where it overwhelmed me. There have been
many more moments of quiet sadness where I miss the woman I loved so much. And, surprisingly, there have been moments of
relief as some of the weight of caring for someone with cancer (and the
expectations she had) falls away. I get
to make my own choices and chart my own path.
Merry Christmas!
O come let us adore him,
O come let us adore him,
O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord!
