In April of 2019, I very unexpectedly lost my husband, Matt, from a heart attack. I lost my dad to cancer in April of 2020. And then a close family friend died suddenly from a blood clot in May of 2021. Needless to say, it’s been a rough few years. Navigating the holidays after such tremendous loss has been pretty horrific. Also, Matt’s birthday is Dec. 27.
The first year after my husband died, I felt this pressure to keep the holidays the same, keep things “normal.” I don’t know why; nothing was normal. The pressure was only in my head; no one said I needed to keep things the same. I guess I didn’t know what else to do. We celebrated the best we could with our family. The empty chair where Matt should have been felt like a black hole waiting to swallow me up. Matt loved to cook and especially to cook for other people. I didn’t want to cook anything, but I did it anyway. I also knew at that time that it was most likely my dad’s last Christmas with us. And it was. It was all really, really hard.
We had been invited many times to visit our friends in Florida, and it had just never worked out. When they invited us again after Matt died, I decided that my boys and I needed to go. Going during Christmas break seemed like the best time for many reasons, but especially so that we had something to look forward to during the holidays. On Christmas afternoon, my boys and I flew to Florida. It was an amazing escape from our reality. It was a change of scenery, change of tradition, and we got to spend time with friends that we love and that are truly like family.
A few years before he died, Matt had visited these same friends for a guys’ trip, and they went fishing.
We had many fishing memories as a family, it was something we all enjoyed, so we decided to go fishing for Matt’s birthday. We had an amazing day on the water, caught a ton of fish and even saw a rainbow. It really was a pretty perfect day, and a great trip too. We talked about Matt, told stories and laughed; I also cried because I missed him terribly. But overall the memories of that trip were good, and healing as well. We had a great time, and we were happy, despite it being the holidays and missing Matt so much. We will be forever grateful to our friends for giving us those good memories.
I realized, or maybe accepted, only recently that doing things the same way we’ve always done them for the holidays (and other times) is too hard, and really doesn’t make sense in our life right now. I have actually had the urge to do things differently since Matt died, but didn’t really understand why. I now think that trying to celebrate the holidays with the same traditions, in the same house, eating at the same table — with people missing — makes the void seem even larger. Things are not the same. They are never going to be the same.
I think, somewhere in my mind, I have felt that if I changed our traditions, it was another loss, that I
needed to keep things “normal,” so I have fought the urge to change things too much. I don’t feel that way now. I feel like creating new traditions is a necessity for healing, doing what feels right and not forcing anything. Matt and my dad are gone, and my boys are grown; things are going to look and feel differently no matter what. Creating new traditions and memories doesn’t get rid of past memories, but might be less painful and help us heal. Creating new memories and having new traditions is important. It’s hard to have memories without those you’ve lost being part of them, but it’s also unavoidable.
The holidays will never be the same, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create new, great memories. The holidays will just look a bit different. Maybe what works one year, won’t work the next. I know for sure that Matt and my dad would want us to do whatever works for us, that they want us to be happy. As with everything in this journey, we’ll figure it out, one day at a time.
Please count your blessings today. Spend quality time with those you love. Take lots of pictures. Enjoy the little moments in life; they really are the big things. I promise you will cherish those memories and pictures forever — that will not change.
Thomasson is a kindergarten teacher at Centennial Elementary School in Lewiston.
