PERSONAL: THE SECOND HOLIDAY WITHOUT MY DAD AND I AM A MESS

Last year I was totally numb during Thankgiving and Christmas.  I was simply going through the motions , about to experience the worst holiday in my life. I had just lost my dad in May, I was still very much in a state of shock. Doing normal Thankgiving or Christmas things seemed unimaginable.

My dad was larger than life. He was most often the loudest, most joyful person in the room at family gatherings, especially during the holidays. They were his absolute favorite. I simply could not imagine spending a  Thanksgiving or Christmas without him there. It was unfathomable that I would go shopping and not buy him a gift. And as I thought about ringing in the new year, the only thing I could think was that 2017 would be the first calendar year that would not include my dad.

My inner grief was taking over every thought. Every potential joy was trumped by the fact that my dad was not there to experience it too. And as I was struggling internally with my overwhelming grief, everything going on around me seemed to fall apart. It was as if the universe was aligning to ensure I would have the worst holiday ever.

Without my dad, everything just seemed so much quieter. It felt as if we were merely pretending to celebrate . The joyful, festive atmosphere was not there. I think each one of us was in our own private echo chamber of grief. Because even within the same family, every person experiences their grief differently.

This year is worse.I am not nearly as ‘together’ as I thought I would be.  It just became  more real that my dad is truly gone and the holidays would never look and feel exactly the same again.  This of course does not mean the holidays can’t still be wonderful, but it does mean they will always be at least a little hard, different and bittersweet.

This past week we had a tag sale in my mom house and we sold a lot of thing. One of the item was a piano.. I am total mess.