Ghosts of Christmas Now: Dealing With Grief During The Holidays

Grief is a strange beast. It stops and blocks your path suddenly just when you've found a happy, heart-thumping pace, or t-bones you unceremoniously at light-speed, flattening you into a trauma pancake when you least expect it.

I personally feel like Nostalgia and Grief hang out in the same circles. But while Nostalgia may make me more prone to watching 80's holiday specials with all the commercials on YouTube, occasionally misting over at my childhood and wondering at the passage of time; Grief will suddenly put me in a headlock and feed me the one Christmas memory of my dad that is so real that I can smell his sweater.

This memory feels new, or I feel young, still so little. I'm 7 or 8. He's wearing a Fimo teddy bear pin that my sister has crafted for him, and a white collared shirt pokes out from his sweater collar. He has his nice slacks on. I can smell a hint of cologne. I can feel the gentle scratch of fine wool on my face as I bury my face into his shoulder.

Daddy hugs.

I can hear the static hiss and pop of vinyl in my memory - 'ding dong merrily on high' floats through the air from our speakers. I see the stack of his Christmas records leaned up against the teak entertainment unit. Our Christmas tree looks beautiful and full of magic. Time slows down. I inhale deeply to capture the moment but I can't breathe it in fast enough and everything starts to disappear.

The memory is gone.

I'm staring at my computer screen. How long have I been like this? Tears are streaming down my face, my throat is numb and there is a vice grip on my heart. My dad is gone, and I don't know how to bring that feeling back - that warm, scrunch my face in his shoulder feeling. How do I bring those memories into the now? How do I let my kids feel that expression of love without my sorrow?

How do we grieve, and heal, and let go and joyfully honour at the same time?

I lost my dad in June 2023. Since then there has been a rip in time and space as I know it. I don't seem to know when I am. I have struggled with my own loss and grief before, but this is different. With my other experiences I have body memories; or had long healing journeys that gradually loosened their grips on me. Even with those there are still anniversaries that I take time to remember and honour, but they are nothing like this.

The grief I feel with my dad's death is like a quantum shock, again and again. All of a sudden I am 20. I am 5. I am 7. I am 45...It's then, it's now. We are laughing; fighting; talking; having coffee; sailing. At home he is the sound of the floor creaking, a knob turning, a door closing. He is someone my mind continually reaches out for, and then all of a sudden it is over. I am left alone, sobbing, wondering how I am supposed to heal from this all over again.

"Awww Mom, big feelings?" My kids will ask me lovingly.

"Yes... Big feelings," I say, comforting them, fascinated that we are able to compartmentalize and parent, and write reports, and drive cars, and order pizzas, and scream-cry into a pillow because of grief all in a days work.

This holiday season has been inviting, filled with the promise of family time and extra rest. But something has laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, making me feel trepidatious. My heart has been fluttering and I can't seem to get that joyful 'holiday' feeling back. I usually dig deep into nostalgia, watching old cartoons and favourite movies with the kids but I've been more cautious there too.

I think it's because I've become wary of Nostalgia in general, with it's frosted vignette corners, and vaseline smeared lens. It's still so easy for me to hop from a general memory of the past to a family memory, over to my dad - the Grief / Nostalgia crossover. It's so easy for me to become that trauma pancake. My brain connects the dots so quickly and it's all to easy for his grand persona to eclipse everything. I am blinded by how bright those memories are. I become lost and feel it all, and come out of them wondering if what I'm doing is enough... if I'm passing down enough traditions, if I'm achieving enough. If I'm teaching enough values to my children. These quantum shocks rip me right open. Every time I get hit it's like even my scars become completely undone and patiently I have to start healing all over again; growing skin again.

I do, eventually.

It just takes time.

These weeks when I am flooded by holiday memories in the wake of years gone by, I look at my kids, to their beautiful open faces. I look at my own family Christmas tree, magical in its own right. In the quiet, when my family spends time together I think 'This moment is beautiful and I am here for it, and so is my dad.' And for a moment there is a warmth that I feel, the barest whisper of timelessness, a spark. Something in the ether that ignites my heart and makes everything ok. I glimpse of a photo of him on a bookshelf and linger on it. It bridges the past to the here and now. I take a deep breath and smile.

The air feels thick and still. My throat is tight with tears, but I know we are all at the same time. We are everywhere. We are altogether, now.

And then again, the moment is gone, life's tempo speeds up again, and I'm left healing, skin growing, strangely waiting for the next flood of beautiful memories that are all around me always.