A Smiling Young Widow

The holidays can hit hard. It’s a bit like the love bombing of Valentine’s day, but this is a long season that seems to almost pressure cook our grief.

I’ve been reflecting on how far I’ve come on my grief journey to find a sort of balance, holding both the joy and sadness that this season brings. 

In 2023 I started to write about my first holiday season without Tom, but that didn’t go up on the blog. It felt almost too depressing to share, or like I was complaining that I couldn’t handle other people still having their intact holidays. But I’m going to share it now – I think it gives realism to how this time of year can hit and maybe helps other grievers to feel seen too.

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I got into the car and the radio was playing It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. I literally laughed out loud at how ridiculous that felt. Now that song has been stuck in my head, but replacing that one line whenever it comes up with: “It’s the most horrible time of the year”.

Tom always worked on the road. Sometimes I wonder if that’s made it easier or harder for me to adjust to him not coming home. Regardless, this month he should be here. December was when Tom would take a big chunk of time off, at least a week before Christmas until a week after New Year’s. Thursday December 14th was a hard day for me. It’s not a day anyone else would have even noticed. Thursdays were the day Tom typically came home from work each week. And this particular Thursday should have been the day he came home to start his holidays. I should have been able to come home to him everyday now. We should have been doing Christmas baking together, or sitting by the fireplace reading with coffees, or outside enjoying our favourite winter activities. It would have been just the two of us before we road-tripped somewhere to see family.

Feeling the overwhelming presence of an absence – I don’t remember who to credit for that phrase, but it really does explain the holidays after your loved one dies. Everything about this season feels to be quite the opposite of wonderful. I’ve already had to get through eight months of this widow life, yet this still feels so raw. The holidays are a different beast to conquer too. The small talk about plans. The gatherings. The traditions.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

I want to apologize for times in the past when I would flippantly pass along a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year” without holding enough space for how complicated this time of year can be (and not just because of losing a loved one, there are a hundred reasons the holidays might be hard). I want to apologize for the times when I didn’t know what to say to someone grieving, when I thought it was better to say nothing so as not to trigger any sad feelings, to avoid mentioning their person – as if they weren’t constantly feeling that huge void their person left behind.

For anyone with a spouse or partner alive, if you start to think how much they play into your holidays you might just start to understand how painful this time of the year is. Planning where to spend the holidays, travelling there together. Deciding how much time to book off work. Giving a shared gift. Signing a card. Receiving cards or gifts addressed to both of you. Baking favorite treats. Holding the ladder as you put up lights – or at least checking you haven’t fallen off (this honestly was Tom’s role in decorating the outside of our house!). Decorating the tree. Venting about family dynamics (if anyone in our family reads this – obviously Tom and I never had anything to vent about…). The quiet debriefs that happen as you snuggle in for the night.

I talked with my therapist at the beginning of December about how I’d been getting questions like “How do you think the holidays are going to be for you?” – I shared how it was hard to politely answer this when my real answer should have been “probably pretty fucking terrible”. For the record, this was actually a therapist-approved answer that I never did actually use, but would have been a really appropriate reply to a pretty stupid question to ask someone trying to survive their first Christmas as a widow.

The New Year Looms

Opening Instagram to see posts about how amazing 2023 was or those “best year yet” highlight reels is frankly brutal. Must be real nice to have your world intact. It’s reminders of how great my life used to be too. For me 2023 will forever stand out as the worst year of my life. Certainly I could still have subsequent terrible years – I now don’t naively dismiss that might come true – but this one will forever make the list.

Looking back on 2023 is painful, but so is needing to looking ahead to 2024. It hurts to see how much the world keeps on spinning. There will never be a New Year that doesn’t cut now – time marches me further away from the last moments I had with Tom.

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As I enter my third December without Tom – still wild to wrap my head around how time has passed like that – I’ve come to have more realistic expectations of the holidays. There will always be a shadow tagging along, though there also are so many moments of light and happiness found along the way too. I think it’s about taking the pressure off of this season, letting it be what it will be. Slowing down. Grief and joy exist together here.

This year I set up our Christmas tree and let the tears come as I pulled out ornaments. Not hiding from all the emotions of what this holds for me. Not pretending I’m okay with Tom not being here. Not believing that my grief should have any sort of end point (reminder to not let any internal or external grief thieves infiltrate your ideas on that).

I treated this as a bit of a grief sesh – I don’t necessarily do those as often anymore, but I think it’s important to intentionally make time for that mourning to happen during the holidays. This season holds so much and we can’t just turn away from that, no matter how busy it gets. I think my Christmas decorating with all the cozy vibes and warm lights will be a really excellent witness to my grief in the coming weeks as two realities collide of what the holidays should have been and what they are now.

Another couple of quotes I had scribbled down – “By truly feeling the dark, we are able to unlock the joy” and “I have so much joy because I cry a lot”. Reminders of just how grey this all is. Grief isn’t the enemy, it needs to be welcomed in no matter how much we want to resist. Sadness – or any of the emotions that come along after a death – need to be given space to be felt or else they aren’t going anywhere. 

I know that even with the huge presence of Tom’s absence, joy is here too – it hides in places like twinkling lights on a dark morning, listening to live music, sharing a laugh, watching the magic of the season unfold for little ones in my life, and connecting with people I love.