Christmas Eve in my family is when all the real Christmas celebrations happen. We have dinner on the 24th and all of the kids stay up until midnight, singing songs to my grandmother and waiting to open their presents.
This year there will be no grandmother to sing to and at 4am this morning this reality hit me hard.
The only thing I remember from my first Christmas without my mom is that I was 10, she was in the hospital and I remember calling her to wish her a Merry Christmas. I don’t remember if I dreaded waking up that morning or if I knew things would never be the same.
This morning I knew and it made me not want to get out of bed.
I know that eventually we’ll find an equilibrium, we’ll reach a new normal and somehow celebrating Christmas again will feel okay. I just don’t think this will be that year.
Everything that happens tonight will just remind me of where we were a year ago – my grandmother laying in bed because she was just too weak, my baby cousins opening presents at midnight in her bedroom because she couldn’t make it to the living room, the video I have of her handing out envelopes to her grandchildren and great grandchildren.
The holidays have a way of making a loss feel like it just happened yesterday. It sucks. I still haven’t figured out a way to make it stop, so instead of attempting to ignore it, I will just take it one step at a time.
First up was getting out of bed.
Image: WeHeartIt
