I somehow never expected Christmas to be hard. The last week of every month is horrible at our house. With me. The last week of every month, I retreat into myself. I have no desire to see a single soul on earth.
I only want Everett.
He would've been six months old. 26 Thursdays.
Most other days are ok. But the last week of every month is close to unbearable. It's like my whole body reminds me I don't have a baby and should.
The last week of every month I'm grouchy towards Keith. I can't really figure it out. Other than he wants to be close and I want to be alone. I want to cry. I want to remember. And it feels like he doesn't.
Then we say something about it and I realize we just handle this ache, this longing, this... Emptiness very differently. He wants comfort. I want isolation. He wants connection. I want to disconnect.
He sees a baby and smiles. I see a baby and weep, even if on the inside.
He wants a baby again soon and I just want some time to miss Everett. I feel like time has been stolen from me. Time to handle it. Time to compartmentalize it. To put it away.
But Christmas reminds me that there is no putting it away when you lose a part of yourself. There is no drawer to file it away. The loss. The emptiness. The baby. That isn't there.
Damn Matthew West and his song about the baby you love so much won't make it through the year. I can't even listen to it. I have had to change the Christmas music in the car. When last year, while you were pregnant with a perfect little baby, you wept because of the hormones pulsing through you made you think losing a baby would take your breath away. It would be the end of you. Life would be unbearable.
But it doesn't. It doesn't take your life if you don't let it.
But it doesn't stop hurting.
It doesn't stop the longing.
It can make you make poor decisions. It can make you think selfishly. It can make you realize that there IS a wrong way to grieve. Grieving selfishly makes you not talk about it. Makes you think people should cater to your needs and absolve you from catering to others' needs.
Christmas reminds of so many things. May it remind us more tha ever to give, love, and live unselfishly. To give more than get. To love more than demand love. To live in service to those around us. Even in our pain. Even in our weakness. Even in our longings for daily needs. To make decisions that are bigger than our attitudes. To make decisions that are bigger than our needs. To make decisions beyond ourselves.
It will not provide anything more than peace. The pain will still be there.
But peace.
Peace. Is the only way you survive.
The longing for a loved one never goes away. But the peace of living unselfishly puts life in perspective.
And of all times of the year, Christmas should be about perspective.
