“Happy New Year!” How many woke up on January 1stwith a touch of “rockin’ pneumonia” from ringing in the New Year? When you’ve been through (or are still dealing with) a tough time, the holidays bring a different kind of “hangover.”
“They” expect us to be happy during the holidays. Thanksgiving is a time focused on gratitude. Christmas is an expectant time to celebrate the gift of the birth of Christ. New Year’s ushers in fresh starts and excitement for what the new year will unfold.
“They” underestimate the amount of energy required to get from November to January. Mustering the drive needed to make that holiday haul can zap us – mentally, physically, and emotionally. And when we do arrive at January still intact, we are kinda left wondering, “what next?”
When one year has been tough, hitting the reset button on a fresh year can be a welcome relief. New year, new job. New year, new gym. New year, new house. New year, new you!You name it. Whatever held you back in the prior year can be wiped clean allowing you to move forward.
Other times – even when a year has been unrelenting – we don’t want to let go. Sometimes, we’d rather time stand still. Sometimes, we’d rather rewind the days to a time when things made more sense. The holidays have already left us hungover and now “they” are saying that we need to “move forward.”
Time becomes warped when you are in fresh grief. [“Fresh” is a relative term as grief really has no shelf-life on this earth.] When I hear “Last Christmas” or “Last summer,” my mind immediately meanders to 2016. My heart harkens to the last time that my little family made sense. My soul is stuck in an era when Brooke was physically with us.
Last New Year’s (when we ushered in 2018) may have been the worse New Year ever. My prior experience with loss did very little to prepare me for the realization that we would make no new memories in 2018 that begin with “Remember when Brooke [fill-in the blank].”
Of course, I already knew this. Yet, one of the blessings and curses of how the mind warps with grief is that you don’t know everything at once. It’s as if the mind spoon feeds new realities to you as it thinks you are ready. Other times, it’s as if the mind breaks like a bloated levee no longer able to hold back. That’s what happened on January 1, 2018. My mind held back as long as it could from telling my heart and soul that there’d be no new memories. Then, it was almost as if the holiday fireworks were bomb blasts exploding away a dam of emotion. The realization hit hard.
So, you’d think that having come to appreciate this new reality that it would be easier “moving forward.” You would think that sailing into 2019 would be smooth. Not so much. As I scrolled through posts in some of the online support groups, I found (somewhat relieved that I was not alone) that other parents who had lost children were also reeling from the holidays and feeling angst about the new year – even those who had many “new years” under their belts.
There are a couple of takeaways. First, no matter how “well” it might appear that a grieving parent (or sibling or spouse or child or whomever) may be handling a loss – grief does not move in logical, linear progression. Grief looks a lot more like a pile of tangled Christmas lights than neatly hung party lights.
Second, any event or “celebration” that spotlights the loss will sting – no matter how joyous that occasion may be. We – the bereaved – can celebrate joy, but it is just a little different. That “before and after” date splits us into two halves. As we piece back our new existence, the halves don’t quite line up. One half praises the blessings – because there are still so many blessings. Memories of our lost loved ones are a treasured blessing, and we are ever grateful for new blessings as they come. Our other half curses the injustice of living “without” and wages an all-out war against anything joyful.
Life – as if it were not already – becomes a constant battle to remain faithful to God, to our families, and to ourselves.
The good news is that the battle is already won. If we can only “sweat out” the lies that keep us focused on our hurt and loss, we’d see that even in the midst of unspeakable hurt, we are not alone. Our God stands victorious between us and the enemy. He stands beside us in comfort. He stands behind us in strength. When time passes from this life, God will wipe away every tear.
Dear Heavenly Father, help us not to fear the passing of time here on earth. Send your Spirit to untangle our wounded souls. Hold us in your victorious right hand. With your Son as our model, fill us with faith so that our battered hearts beat only for You. Shake off the forces that seek to drain our faith. Make our spirits drunk with joy for You, and may your unfailing hope displace our hurtful hangovers. May we overflow with delight as we look forward to a day when there will be NO MORE TEARS. Amen.
SDG
