It was December 25, 2009 and I was sitting in the combination living room/den at my in-laws’ house, surrounded by my husband’s family and a mountain of ribbons and shredded wrapping paper. The chaos of gift giving had subsided and my sweet mother-in-law stood before me with a grin spread across her face that had moved right up into her eyes, making them twinkle like the lights on her artificially flocked tree. She wanted to know if I liked one particular Christmas present—the one she had carefully chosen just for me, believing it to be the perfect gift. There was just one problem . . .
I didn’t want to be there.
I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want the chaos and the laughter. I didn’t want to be surrounded by all things Christmas . . . all the things I normally loved and looked forward to every year. I honestly didn’t want to be anywhere. I just wanted to fast-forward to December 26th so it would all be over.
That year I had buried my father less than a month before. He had died on the Monday of Thanksgiving week—November 23rd. We held his service on Sunday, November 29th to avoid asking his funeral service friends to choose between our family and theirs so close to the holiday. We knew who’d win, and it wouldn’t be us. Twenty-six days. It had only been 26 days and my heart wasn’t ready to let go of the grief, even for Christmas. I just wanted it all to go away.
I’ve told this story before and the day will come when I’ll probably tell it again. Because everyone needs to understand that it’s okay not to be okay, especially when the big moments in Life roll around and someone who should be there isn’t. The holidays . . . the birthdays . . . the graduations . . . the weddings . . . the birth of your children . . . the milestones of your life that are meant to be shared, that you always thought you’d experience together, can actually generate a sense of dread instead of the anticipation you once felt.
And. That’s. All. Right.
It doesn’t mean you’re broken or that you’ll never know joy again. It just means that now is hard. And the more you loved and the more you shared, the harder it will be. Oh, and that business about Time healing all wounds? Don’t believe it. You’ll be terribly disappointed when it doesn’t happen. Time doesn’t heal, but it does help.
So, this Christmas, if you find yourself longing for December 26th because your heart isn’t ready to celebrate, remember. It’s okay not to be okay. The day will come when the joy returns. It will just feel a bit different from how it once did.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926 and has worked with Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
