next week marks the 5th holiday since the traffic accident took my son and his wife from us. i still haven't found much grief in losing the woman who called me, "monster-in-law," but grieving the loss of mommy and daddy is a whole different can of worms.

herstorically, i've been far mostly annoyed with the western holiday season. i'm neither christian nor a party animal. have a good time, folks, but allow me the option of abstinence. please, please, pretty please. my sons were raised with cultural salutes to the kid appeal of the holiday season, but i never put up the traditional trappings. in november, 2019, a month after the double funeral and the callous upheaval of our 5 lives, any and all distractions felt like blessings. ho ho ho. . . call me a santa of convenience? the show held nothing on the bing cosby specials, but it was pretty dramatic for my grinchy ways. 

we've found our new normal since then, and i'm not too sure how i feel about having the annual ho ho as part of that new normal. the part of me which believes my son is close and watching imagines a big ol' smile of encouragement on his face. he was lovingly tolerant of my non-christian ways, but he always wished i would join in the holidays, anyway.