Christmas is Coming and You Are Not

    I'm trying Trace, I'm really trying to find ways to move past the sadness of your death, but Christmas makes it very hard. There are so many memories in the bag of ornaments I collected for you through the years. And there are new ones I asked your siblings to bring last year, things that represented you. So now there are ornaments for fishing, golf, tools, and a toolbox hanging on the little fiber optic tree we always put in the dining room. It is now the Tracy tree. Last year we decorated minimally, practically on autopilot. The bigger fiber optic tree sufficed for the living room, outdoor lights were on the fence and the star shower pointed at the front window. That was all we had the heart to do.

   This year we bought an artificial tree. You know I have never wanted one, but the same Home Depot ad showed the 6' fir trees we normally buy for $70 on sale and 7.5 ' prelit fake tree for $79 on Black Friday. And you also know I can't resist a bargain. Your dad put the full run of lights across the eaves and down the fence, but it took 3 hours without your help. We are trying to make Christmas familiar and good like I know you would want us to, but there is nothing familiar about this.

    Last Saturday we decorated your grave. The last thing any parent wants to do, but it would seem so desolate when the snow came without something for color and light. So Reed safety wired a wreath to the bench and put a solar light cross in front of it. Afterward we played Christmas carols by August Burns Red in your honor, but not for long. The sun was shining, but the wind was very cold. Since the cemetery closes at dusk, we never get to see the solar lights, but the ones we brought home from your grave last year still give a little light. There is always some light Tracy, lots of it where you live now. I'm sure we will have many happy moments this Christmas, but right now the decorations in their familiar places just make it more obvious that you are not in yours. We're trying Tracy. We are trying to move past the shadows and into the light.

Christmas is Coming and You Are Not

 

There is a certain callousness in Christmas, 

which comes unbidden with its load of gifts,

good memories of the ones we love

made painful because there will be no more,

at least, not like those that came before.

The music, lights and ornaments

which once brought peace and comfort,

are now tender reminders of

the empty places where you were loved--

that Christmas is coming and you are not.

I'm safe at home and surrounded by 

the things that used to bring me joy,

yet all I want to do is cry.

Cruel Christmas intruded as if it forgot

it shouldn't be coming if you are not.