My Christmas is my own. Yours is yours. You may not even celebrate Christmas. Happy Holidays then.
But, for me, I do celebrate, and I adore Christmas. For a guy, I genuinely enjoy the shopping—even for clothes. I love the lights all over the place. The stacks of gifts, the trees. If my house isn’t filled with schmaltzy movies about romance found and families reunited, I don’t feel like it’s really Christmas.
But this Christmas season is different. I don’t have someone around I used to have. This article started off happy to prove, that yes, I am no hater of the holiday. I want you to understand, dear reader, despite this dark topic, I will have a happy 25th. I’ll hold on tight to the people around me.
But yeah, this is a tinged year.
Grandma. Sorry you didn’t get to spend this time with family. Sorry…well…sorry for the fact you got sick. “Sorry” is too soft a word to express how I feel about the fact you died.
Wherever you are, if they celebrate Christmas, I hope it’s full of light. I hope you get to enjoy it, like you did before, without pain or sadness.
I hope so. This universe is not fair. But I hope it’s kind enough to give you that. You, undoubtedly, deserve that.
This is my first Christmas with her loss. Not my first loss, not the first time I’ve dealt with this. But…well…it hurts, you know? Of course you do, reader. I think you understand exactly what I mean. It’s why I want you to have a Happy Holiday as well, as Merry a Christmas as you can.
And, I searched for silver linings, and I found one, an interesting one. “They will always exist in your memories” is a platitude I’ve heard before, but I didn’t understand until around now that as people, as humans, we can imagine family back—perhaps not all the way, but to some degree. I had a dream recently where I gave my grandmother a hug and said, “you feel so real.” And, somehow, with my mind supplying the sensation of touch, she did.
And my mental version of her responded: “Well, of course I’m real.”
So, I guess that’s what’s left to us. And as a writer, a person who creates fictional people, I can try to save a piece of them. Hold them to reality the same way all creating and creative people, whether through children or art or help or reputation, do.
All my characters are a piece of me. And everyone we encounter adds to who we are. So, it might be possible to conjure an echo, at least.
And even if it’s not true, at least it’s a lie making me feel a bit better. And when it comes to grief and sadness, finding some happiness is the best thing I, or anyone, can do.
So, Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. May you find light, no matter the circumstances. Hope, the glorious human emotion, is what all holidays are a celebration of, at least at the end of the day.
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Coolerbs Writes 