Everyday I want to scream. Every single day I want to rip every single Christmas decoration and throw it out the window and never look at it again. I hold strong, I close my eyes, I hide in my room, sometimes I even start drinking just enough to go numb, not drunk, but numb enough to endure the pain.
I can't help but look back to the year before... This time last year we were happy, we were all happy. Brian was clean, he had been for several months. I was insanely happy with my job, and working extra hours to help stuff the bus for needy children of Fremont County. I shopped and donated several toys for this campaign.
My children had all decided to sponsor other families that were struggling for Christmas. The joy on their faces when I took them shopping, and they bought not just one toy for each kid, but four toys, and very expensive toys. We had gotten to give the 5 different children from two different families the gifts, and the mothers cried, saying this was the only Christmas that their children would get. My children were happy, proud, and embraced the true Christmas Spirit.
It was the year I was doing the best financially, and was able to provide for each of my children everything on their wish list. They insisted on buying both Brian and I gifts. We were so insanely happy and full of so much love, so much spirit this holiday season...
That was the last time we would ever be a family again...
I wanted to skip the holiday, every holiday to be exact. My family is missing two huge holes. Holes we cannot fill, holes that are painful for all of us. My kids hurt for their father, and the sister they thought they had. They hurt for the family that was full of laughter and so much love. They too wanted to escape the Holidays and just run away, go somewhere, no longer be this constant reminder of the family that is broken.
I thought about it. I thought about skipping them all.
It was after talking to a coworker about how her family never celebrated holidays, because her father walked out on them on Christmas, and holidays became a pastime. It was her story of how now that she is an adult, she doesn't know how to "do holidays", that got me thinking. She is with her boyfriend and they are doing the family thing, and she feels awkward about the traditions and unsure of what to do.
In that moment I realized that I was doing my children a disservice. I know they want to skip the holidays as much as I do, and just run away from the pain and the reminders. Then I remembered that as parents we raise our children to one day have their own families, to become husbands, to become a wife, and mother and fathers... If I raise them escaping holidays, they will grow up and fight with their spouses over celebrating the holidays and their traditions. They will kick and scream when it comes to family gatherings and dinners... They will want to run away on vacations to avoid the holidays, while their spouses will justifiably want to spend the holidays with their families. For this reason alone I will endure every holiday and try my best to contain my pain, my resentment, for their futures...
I only pray I find the strength for my children, to embrace new traditions, and honor my husband's memory every year, and love him as I always have and always will, in his absence and somehow he will find a way to us in spirit, to remind us that he loves us too, and we are not forgotten... And remind me of the mother I need to be for our children, and give them the life they desperately deserve...
