Remembering Special Days
What do you do when your loved one is gone and your birthday is here? Or your anniversary or their birthday? Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day or any other holiday you celebrated together?
For me, I choose to still enjoy them. It hasn’t been easy and I don’t love celebrating them without Mark but I do. Why? Because I am still here and I still have family and friends to celebrate with me. If I have family and friends who want to celebrate with me, even though it may be hard, why wouldn’t I celebrate? Last week was my birthday, and I was having a cup of coffee at one of my favorite coffee shops. Before I got to the coffee shop, I had already received happy birthdays from several of my family and friends. I had been sung happy birthday from my mama and my grandchildren, which will always be my favorite thing! I received that happy birthday text from a dear friend who always sends the best text and they are forever long. It is always about me being “old and fragile,” but I look forward to them every year. He has been sending them to me for a little over 10 years and he thinks he's funny because I am older than him…but only by a few months and he loves to point that out!
Special days are just that…special days and I want them to stay special. I miss Mark being here to wish me a happy birthday, get me something special, and take me to dinner. I miss having him with us on his favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, his birthday and especially, our anniversary. This past year all our daughters and their families were together for our first holiday without him. Instead of having a bad moment, like I thought I would, I was good. However, the next day was not so good. We decided since we wouldn’t be together for Christmas that we would celebrate Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. After breakfast we sat down to start opening presents. Marissa grabbed the Bible to start reading the Christmas story, which Mark always did. She got about halfway through the story when I looked over at Malory. I was fine until I saw her, and she was crying. I knew why. She was missing her daddy and my heart just hurt for her. As soon as I looked up, I saw Meg and she was crying too. Marissa finished reading and oblivious to the crying looked up and yep, you guessed it, she started crying too. My sons-in-love, Shane and Joshua, bless their hearts, just watched and didn’t really know what to do. They just let us have our cry and then we wiped our tears and went about the day. It was a great day and we laughed and cried and then gave ourselves permission to celebrate the day. It was ok to celebrate because it was about being with the family that is still here and remembering with love the ones that aren’t. I know these aren’t easy days for any of us. As much as we love our family and our friends, we still miss that one that, for me at least, made those days even more special.
Here are a few things I have done to get through those days, and maybe they can help you:
o For your birthday, plan ahead. If someone hasn’t already made plans with you, do the planning yourself. Invite someone to coffee, (my granddaughter came and had coffee with me and no it wasn’t real coffee but she thinks it was). Invite someone to lunch or dinner, to the movies or just have someone over to watch a movie and dinner at your house. Have a day for you and ask others to join!
o For the holidays, depending on which ones they are, make sure you aren’t alone. Although some like being alone and that is ok. If you want to be with family or friends, ask and invite. Some don’t know what to do on those days because they haven’t experienced the loss you have. Let them know you want to be with family and if that isn’t a doable thing, then ask a friend over. Hopefully someone will ask you over and if not, then you do the inviting. Try to make sure you are surrounded by those you love and those who love you. Sometimes it just takes a little effort on our part to make it happen.
o Allow yourself a moment or two, if you need it, to grieve the loss you are experiencing that day. It is ok to cry and miss your loved one. For the majority of us, they made those days special and we don’t ever want to forget them or the memories we shared.
o Remember that there are others who may have experienced the same loss or even a different loss…loss of parents, siblings, or even a child. For me it is always best when I take the focus off what I am experiencing and remember that there are other family members that are also grieving. Not the same as I am but grieving still the same. My daughters miss their daddy, my grandson misses his Pappy, my in-laws and sis-in-love miss their son and brother, my parents miss their favorite son-in-love, my siblings miss their brother-in-law, nieces and nephews miss their uncle and so on. Yes, my loss is great and will always be a part of me and that doesn’t diminish what I am feeling but when I focus on my family and what they may be going through, it helps me knowing that I am not alone in missing Mark. So make sure you reach out to others who have also experienced loss because they want to be remembered on the special days too.
o Remember it will never be the same again. Your days of having your spouse with you on your special days or the holidays is gone but not forgotten. It is your choice to be joyful on those days and remember why you are celebrating. Choose to embrace them. It is ok to enjoy celebrating. Give yourself a break because in the celebrating you can and should remember your loved one and all the previous days you celebrated together. What I don’t want to do is make the family that is still here be sad about celebrating me or the special days. I am here so I want to enjoy the life I have lived and am still living.
Most of us know our loved one would want us to continue to celebrate those special days and continue to remember and celebrate them on their special days. We would or should want that for them if the situation were reversed. I know I would want that for my family and for Mark. I know not everyone feels the same as I do. These are just my thoughts and feelings and how I choose to cope with my special days. Let me know how you get through your special days. I know if you have lost a loved one you have your own ways to cope. Maybe how you cope can help someone else.
Confident in His love
Isaiah 54:10
