Living and Grieving During the Holidays

Last night Henry asked to see a picture of himself as a Caterpillar from last Halloween. Because I rarely print pictures, my go-to way of showing him things is to log on to my blog.  So I go to last year and pull up the trick or treating post  and there he is, in all of his adorableness:


But as we scroll through the post, something else pops out.

"Hey!  Aunt Mimi was there!"


"Yes, she was baby.  She loved going Trick or treating with you all"

"Is Mimi all better in heaven?"

"Yes baby.  She is all better."

"But now she can't go trick or treating."

"No... she can't"

The holidays are coming... in a lot of ways the holidays are here.  We just had Halloween.  We are working on plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And I am a bag of mixed emotions.  We love the holidays.  I cannot wait for Henry to open presents and see the pure joy of Christmas on his face.  And yet...

Here we are again with the 'and yets'...

My grief is sitting very near the surface lately.  It never goes away, but sometimes, in the rush of life, it buries itself a little deeper.  But right now it feels as if it's sitting right here with me, changing the way I see everything around me. 

But I refuse to let my fear and grief over the loss of Missy dictate the next two months of our lives.  I have found that the fear of something being hard, that consuming thought of "How will we get through this", is far worse than the events themselves.  In the moment, there is Henry and Nick, there is our family and friends, there is so much love.  But like with my birthday weekend or Halloween, there is an underlying heartbreak because she is absent.  And she shouldn't be.

I was ordering presents last night that had to do with Missy and I thought "Is this too sad?  Is it too painful to give these gifts that are reminders of her?" as I cry while placing the order.  And then I decided that it would be more sad to refuse to acknowledge her absence, just because I am afraid.  There has to be a balance of letting the grief in, and not letting it consume me.  This holiday season I will be constantly struggling with that balance.  Bear with me as I do the best I can.