I haven’t written in almost a month. I’ve hit a point in my grief where I’m starting to feel numb – the grief is still there, and I’m trying to figure out what my new life looks like while making room for this grief that is never going to go away.
The holidays this year feel harder than they did last year. Last year, things were so new that I was still in shock. Don’t get me wrong – the holidays were hard, but every day was SO hard then. Every day is still so hard, but in a different kind of way.
This year, Sara and I are supposed to be celebrating the holidays for the first time with George – he would be almost 11 months old now, had he been born on his due date. This year, Sara’s absence feels more real, more permanent. I’m really never going to get to help her make her delicious stuffing again, and we are never going to put up the holiday trees together again.
I’ve gotten better about not focusing on their absence in my life. Don’t get me wrong – I think about both of them, every single day. But many days I’m able to acknowledge the pain, the missing, and keep moving. The pain is a breeze that touches me and keeps going. But the holidays feel daunting. These are days that we’re programmed to put so much meaning into. I’m really angry that Sara and George and I never got the chance to decide what these holidays would mean to us as a family, what our traditions would be.
Sara and I had 4 holiday seasons together:
2015 – this was right after we met. She attended Thanksgiving with my family and wasn’t scared off, which made me happy! We’d only been dating a month at that point. I invited her to my company holiday party, and she expressed amazement that it was the fanciest party she’d ever attended. I loved being able to introduce her to the people I worked with. I hosted a Yule ritual that year at the place I was living, and Sara was able to join me for that, which I was excited about. Christmas morning we spent with her friends-who-are-family & got to meet the cutest puppy, then we moved on to Christmas with my family. I remember Sara and I went to go see a movie with friends the day after Christmas, I think – they were friends of mine who Sara was meeting for the first time.
2016 – we got married that November – we hosted family Christmas that year, the first in our house that we moved into that summer. Sara insisted we put up all THREE trees – one in the living room, one in the sunroom, and one in the TV room in the basement.
2017 – This year Sara graduated with her bachelor’s degree – that was in the summer, but she walked at the December graduation ceremony. I was so proud of her! We hosted family Thanksgiving that year. I remember Sara and I working together to prepare the meal, figuring out the seating…. we loved doing it together.
2018 – Sara and I travelled to Texas to visit my family there for Thanksgiving, and had a great trip. We hosted my family Christmas again that year at our place. This was the year we’d started trying to conceive, and we were full of hope that the following holiday season we would have a child, or at least have one on the way.
There were so many other events and surprises and joyous moments involved in our four holiday seasons together – the above was just the highlights. I miss Sara, so much. Even if I weren’t home alone because of Covid this year, things would still be wrong, lonely – because the love of my life who loved the holidays and hosting, celebrating, traditions, gifts, cooking, who loved spending the holidays with me, and who filled my life with love all year round is gone.