Love and Loss at Holiday Time
The sky lit up with color the night before my mom died.
It was July 12th, 2014. Mom was on her 32nd day in hospice care after a 1.5 year battle with cancer. I’d spent the past month switching off days spent at her bedside with my dad and my aunt, making sure she was never alone in between all the visits from family and friends during her last days on this earth.
As I was spending some time that evening with my sister-in-law, expecting for my cell phone to ring at any moment with the news, a huge summer rain storm came barreling through my central Wisconsin hometown. The sheets of rain were torrential. Fitting, I thought, for the heavy days of watching my mother slowly pass away. Then, just as suddenly as it came, the storm receded and the sky opened up to a brilliant sun filling the landscape. My sister-in-law and I were mid-conversation when we both stopped to look outside, our mouths agape, at what appeared in the hazy blue sky above: the biggest, brightest, most colorful double-rainbow I’d ever seen. It was just dazzling. It even filled up her living room with light. We were both in awe. And then, we looked at each other and said what we were both thinking in that same moment: “It’s mom. She’s gone.”
My cellphone didn’t ring. And Mom was still here with us, but she was preparing to cross over. It wasn’t until the next day, July 13th, around 8 PM, that mom took her last breath. Dad and I were at her bedside, holding each of her hands in ours. She was 61 years old. We all believed she’d just always be there. Imagining life without her in it was simply incomprehensible.
It is difficult to fathom the depth of grief that comes when losing a parent until it happens to you. My mom was my best friend, my guide, my cheerleader, my anchor that kept me grounded in a love I could depend on and find safety in. Losing her was like being set adrift in a vast ocean, desperate to find something to cling to, bracing against crushing waves of sadness and emotional pain, terrified at moments of being lost and alone. I realized I had no idea who I was without her. The next several months were a rollercoaster of emotion: feeling deeply connected to her and so confident she was with me in spirit, yet at times frightened by no knowing what actually lay beyond. I found myself asking her questions you might hear from a young child: “Where are you? Where did you go? Can you see and hear us? Are you at peace?”
I felt our entire family reeling and shifting to try to fill the vast hole created by her absence. Mom was the rock of our family, the glue that helped us all feel connected and that shaped our relationships. One of the most powerful ways that she connected us to each other came during the holidays. While Halloween was becoming a new favorite in her later years, the Christmas season was where my mom really shone. Her joy trickled down to all of us this time of year. She was at her happiest when she was pulling her well-worn boxes of decor out of the linen closet, decorating every corner of the house, hanging years of collected ornaments on the sturdy artificial tree in the living room, spending a week making all of her signature cookies, and preparing the big meal for Christmas Day. All the while her favorite Christmas cd’s created a soundtrack in the kitchen as she got to work! It all culminated in what I believe was really the most sacred part of the season for her: the moment when all her kids and grandkids came walking through that front door to enjoy her labors of love and spend the day together as a family. She was there at the center of it all, talking, laughing, sipping her glasses of Asti, beautiful and radiant and so full of love and gratitude for this family she and Dad created together from the very beginning. I loved these moments and cherish these memories.
The first year or two after mom’s death, though, I no longer enjoyed Christmas. All I could feel was melancholy and anger and loneliness. How could someone so loving, so self-less, so vibrant be taken from our lives? Who were we now as a family without her at the center of it? If you’ve lost someone close to you, perhaps you have or still are navigating these kinds of feelings and questions during this holiday season. If this resonates, I would like to tell you three things:
It Gets Better.
As I said, the first year or two was hard. Very hard. I did very little to celebrate or acknowledge those Christmas seasons because it was just too painful. And slowly, I noticed the weight of my grief letting up. The third year, I made a music playlist called “Christmas Doesn’t Suck” with a few songs that made me smile. The next year I added a few others that were a bit more upbeat and fun. I noticed myself feeling more celebratory and planning more events with friends. And I’ve seen the light coming back into our family as we continue to find new ways to take care of each other and redesign our relationships. Seven years later, I can say that I truly look forward to the season again because, over time…
You can find joy again in traditions and celebrations that you once shared with your beloved.
Mom’s love of the holidays now lives on in me, and I feel so connected to her when I really embrace this part of myself. I feel she is with me now when my partner, Mischa, and I go trekking into the woods every December to cut down a little hemlock or fir for our living room. She’s there the next day while I’m stringing lights and hanging ornaments that include some from her own collection of many years ago. One season my brother gifted all of us an ornament with her photo in it, and I put that one at the very top of the tree. I can see & feel her in the kitchen with me when I’m baking treats (sometimes it’s one of her recipes) and celebrating with dear friends. My way of celebrating the season looks different from hers, and that’s okay. It’s all part of me becoming my own person and knowing who I am. And I know she’s so proud of me, because…
You haven’t lost this person, and you never will: they are always with you.
Author and physic medium Laura Lynne Jackson, writes in her latest book Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe , that our loved ones who have died are not really ‘gone.’ They’ve just crossed over into a different place than those of us who are still living, and they are still energetically connected to us. Your deceased loved ones are always watching over you and communicating with you through the use of signs or messages. For example: have you ever been missing someone and suddenly their favorite song comes on the radio? Have you ever noticed something that reminds you of your loved one and then suddenly start seeing it crop up everywhere? The day my sister-in-law and I saw the double rainbow we quickly associated it with mom, and now it’s become a shared symbol of her continued presence in our lives. She still sends me a photo every time a big rainbow appears above her house, letting me know mom came for a visit. Recently I had been missing mom deeply and questioning whether she was really sending me any signs, when all of a sudden it seemed that nearly every child walking through the front door of my preschool was coming in with rainbows on their clothes, their jackets, their backpacks, etc. Several of those children complimented me for the first time on on my earrings: they were a pair of mom’s favorites. Another two children, for the first time since the school year started, pointed to and said they liked my tattoo: it’s an anchor in honor of my mom. I noticed several Pride flags and rainbow-colored Christmas lights on houses and businesses along my usual bike route home one day. And that same week, the sun broke through a band of steady rain one afternoon to create a small rainbow on the horizon outside my window. “Okay mom,” I said aloud with a smile and tears in my eyes, “I know you’re here. Thank you for confirming!!” If only we are open to receiving, we will begin to see the beautiful and unexpected ways our loved ones are still with us after death.
How do you want to connect with, honor, and remember a loved one who has died this holiday season? Perhaps it’s lighting a candle for them, putting up a photo of them where you see it every day, making a donation in their memory, hosting a gathering for family & friends to share their favorite stories about the person, making a toast to them, cooking one of their favorite recipes, creating a piece of art or decor that represents them…trust that when an idea comes to you, this is a message from your loved one letting you know they are there with you, they always will be, and the love between you will never cease.
I would love to know what helps you feel connected to your beloved, or what specials signs they’ve been sending you these days. Drop me a line at becky@coachinginthewild.com.
Wishing you a season of love, light, and connection, whatever and however you celebrate.
Becky
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