Bittersweet Christmas

The tree is up and beautifully decorated, the Christmas season is here with lights and cheer. So why am I not feeling more joyful, I ask myself? Then I remember: the holidays will never be the same again...                     

Christmastime can be bittersweet for those of us who've lost loved ones. The joy and beauty of the season can sometimes be overshadowed by our pain. Grief can sneak up on you and overwhelm you at unexpected moments, because those special people who have left the earth never really leave our hearts.

My mother passed away ten years ago in January, yet I still remember our last Christmas together as if it were yesterday. The time I spent with her before she went into the hospital and never left is a very special, yet deeply painful memory. I took a leave of absence from work and stayed with her and my father at their home as she slowly died of cancer.

I decorated their home, baked cookies, and helped my mother write her last Christmas cards. I bought little gifts to give to her neighbors and the people who came by to visit and help in any way they could. We watched Hallmark Christmas movies together, crying at their sentimental plot-lines. We prayed together, which gave us some peace, but did not bring healing, something I had to learn to accept in time.

Every Advent season, I revisit those memories and find that the pain never really goes away.  It is a part of me now, woven into the fabric that is the tapestry of my life. I guess I don't want it to go away, because, I realize as I grow older, that life itself is joy and pain, dark and light, beauty and ugliness.  It's all part of the wonderful, amazing, sometimes terrifying roller coaster ride that is life.  

I am deeply thankful that I had that last month with my mother, even though it makes me sad to think of it and to realize how much I will always miss her physical presence. She was the heart of our family and her memory lives on in her children and grandchildren. Her spirit lives on forever, of this I am sure!

For all of us who approach this season with bittersweet memories, my prayer today is that we would embrace all the joy and all the pain, allowing it to flow through us.... letting go of what we need to in order to move on, but holding the best part in out hearts.