Holidays
Well the holidays are upon us once again. It is the second holidays without James Robert. I am very depressed and am going to my counselor once a week now to just try and get through them. Everywhere I look I think of James Robert. Especially the photo booths. He so wanted to get our pictures taken just before he died. I kick myself over and over and over that I didn't do it. I just said "later" little did I know there would never be a later to do it. It seems so unfair that James Robert (and all of our loved ones here)have been taken from us. I want to scream and cry. I just want to lay down and forget that it ever happened. I want him home. I can hear his laughter in my head when we where coming home from the visit to my dad and grandmother. He was so full of life. His life hadn't even started really. Sometimes I get confused on his age when he died and it makes me feel even worse. IF I remember right he was 22.5 (July 25 1991 to Jan 2 2014) I keep thinking he is ageing but he isn't. That makes me start to cry all over again. <sigh> It seems like all I do anymore is cry and sleep. It should be getting easier but it isn't. Why does it have to be so hard? Is it just because it was he died on the second of jan or would the holidays be just as hard if he had died another time of year? Part of me wants to go into the hospital and just forget what time of year it is. Another part wants to just end it all. Still another part just wants it over. I don't even want to think how hard actually going through new years is going to be since I am having such a hard time with thanksgiving and christmas. I am sorry this is another downer post. It seems like that is all I have in me is downer. Smiles are a thing of the past. Joy is just a memory. It is like that song "All I have to do is dream, dream, dream...." I don't know the real name of the song but it goes It seems like I am dreaming my life away. That is how I feel. The only way I can have James Robert back is to dream but that is all I am doing is dreaming my life away. In truth I only had a slight idea how much I depended on my boy. I knew he made me smile, but my life literally fell apart when he died.
Ok I am going to stop complaining and sobbing and just go back to bed and sleep till my therapy appt. I hope all your holidays are so much better than mine. Take care and stay strong. Do what everyone tells me to do (thought I can't seem to do it) and be gentle with yourself.
Ok I am going to stop complaining and sobbing and just go back to bed and sleep till my therapy appt. I hope all your holidays are so much better than mine. Take care and stay strong. Do what everyone tells me to do (thought I can't seem to do it) and be gentle with yourself.
Replies
Since we spend so much time with our children, we know them well and there are many, many triggers such as the photo booth, the grocery store, birthdays, the date they left us, holidays, or any other thing that reminds us of them. In the beginning years the grief is intense and I admire you for seeing a therapist. There are many tools each of us needs to use to get through it all.
Many of us have felt as you do and there is no need to apologize for being down. There are not many up sides to grieving. We feel your heart and you have every right to feel the way you do. You are welcome to express your feelings, whatever they may be, anytime. Many of us have felt the same way sometime during our journeys. We have each other to lean on and this sisterhood is one for which I am very grateful.
Sending you hugs of compassion,
Leda
I am so thankful that you came here to share what you are feeling. I often feel so bad for having nothing but negative, angry, sad and hopeless journals. But I come here and I share and it just seems that here, it\'s ok. Someone or many have experienced what I, and you are truly feeling.
Jason died January 25th, 2013. Trust me, it doesn\'t seem to matter. I read somewhere here in someones journal that emotionally it seems to hit about a month before anything. Birthday, day our children died, holidays, everything so it can seem like it takes up most of the year.
I am almost to the end of the second year without my son. It has been so very different than the first year yet in many ways, with the tiniest bit of reality sinking in, this year is somewhat worse. No, my tears don\'t flow half as much yet the loneliness and shattered feelings are more prevalent.
I am so glad you are seeing someone. Hang on to them for as long as you need. Anything to allow you to speak of your son. To affirm that he mattered. And just as he mattered, so do you.
Tightest of understanding hugs,
Merrilee
Charlie\'s 2nd Angel day is Jan. 13. I think that just makes the holidays harder because I know what they\'ll be followed by. Do whatever it takes to get you through the tender days. I\'m glad you have a counselor to talk to.
Love & Hugs,
Donna
I don\'t think it would make the holidays any easier if they had left us at a different time of year. The holidays are so much about memories and we would have to deal with them and their absence regardless. I would love to turn the calendar to January and pretend like the holidays no longer exist myself. My son\'s first angel day will be Dec. 5th, and his birthday was the 11th, so we had that and our first Christmas without him right after his passing. We are doing our Christmas shopping for our daughters mostly online and plan to stay out of the stores as much as possible. I think we all just have to do what it takes for us to survive. I\'m glad you have someone to talk with. Love and tight hugs, Paula
Thank you all. I agree that I am more able to put on a show to the world that I am getting better, but in truth I am worse than I have ever been. I feel like Merrilee said, shattered. I am looking for the pieces but the biggest ones are missing and the other ones won\'t fit together. Every time I try and put them together I feel like I am being shredded.
Kala left earth life as we know it on Jan 2, 2007. I don\'t know if that is what makes the holidays so difficult or not....I think truly, no matter when they shed their earthsuits the holidays would be tough. Holidays are about family...and each year part of our family is missing.
I never thought I\'d smile again...you know a \"real\" smile. Never thought I\'d laugh a real laugh or truly enjoy my life again, but I have, and I do. Part of that is because of who I am, you know, at my core. Part is because of Kala. She fought depression and won, and insists I win too! Part is because of the amazing moms here who let me share it all...over and over...and kept encouraging me to not give up. Part is because though I cursed God mightily the first year, I know God gave me the will to keep trying. Healing doesn\'t come quickly, nor painlessly. But it can come; never stop seeking and never give up hope.
Tight heart hugs of understanding my SOTH~
What a sweet boy he was to want to take photos with his mom!!!
I agree that the holidays suck. Was once my favorite timeo f the year. My birthday is Nov. 21st. My wedding anniversary is Dec, 23rd. I wanted to have Cassi some time in the season. People told me to start trying early because sometimes it takes a while...well it \"took\" the first time we tried, lol and she was born August 20th. So it\'s sad...Fall once signaled the season of awesomeness and now I want to hide under my pillows and come out mid-January.
We will get through it. Our track history proves it...and maybe, just maybe, we will learn to enjoy this time of year, someday...
With you and understanding in only the way another mother can... Just knowing that you are not alone in any of these feelings and that somehow they will begin to morph into something that you will learn how to carry is the HOPE.
The triggers, the days, the sadness became our companions, yet also in time so does some lighter feelings, a memory or two of our beloved children that brings a smile, a tender touch... Somehow in those shattered and broken pieces of our hearts there is room for these too. I\'m not sure how any of it happens, yet the moms kept telling me to keep walking and to pick myself up after I fell and that in time I would learn how to live with my loss. They are wise women because now seven plus years later I am learning how to do this in my own time and in my own way and you are too even if it doesn\'t feel remotely that you are. I promise... YOU are...
Hang on and come here to BE however you need to BE and you will be met with the most understanding of compassionate care.
Hand in hand and Heart to heart,
XO Joanie
the song is \"All I have to do is Dream\" so understand ... sending love and hugs....
Never feel bad about sharing your feelings here. We are here for you and we \'get it\'. Lisa\'s 6th Angel Day is on Dec. 1. It is hard as that year was to be her first back home in 7 or 8 years. We were madly planning. Would it be easier if she had left us at a different time of year? I doubt it. It hurts, no matter what.
As Teri said, I felt that I would never smile again. I was a zombie for a long time. I could don the mask for brief periods of time but as soon as I was back home, I dissolved in to tears.
We put up a tree for the first time last Christmas. I shed tears as I found ornaments that we had when she was a child. But they were good tears. I could remember the good stuff and crack the odd smile among the waterworks.
I still shed a tear almost daily. I miss my daughter more than I can say, and always will. We were best friends (amazing as her teen years were a challenge to say the least!) and talked on the phone daily.
There is no doubt that a part of us goes when we lose a child. We are no longer the same people. But it is possible to have a satisfying life. I try to live a full life and follow Lisa\'s motto \"Live, Laugh. Love\".
I am glad you are seeing a counselor. These are difficult, fragile times. We wonder how we will manage, but we do - on step at a time.
Love and tight hugs, M
This is our hardest time of year, holidays angel dates birthdays. My son loved each holiday he tried to make it special for each one his nieces future stepdaughter. He was always in the kitchen cooking with me and after a big meal he would sleep in my easy chair. These memories have become very precious to me. Yes they still make me cry, I miss him so much.
What you feel is normal, yes I said NORMAL. It is good you are talking with someone that is very important. Life will get busy and you will fit in and join everyone else at a party or get together and feel ok This is coming down the road. In the meantime keep talking in your journals keep feeling because we care.
Sending you the tightest of hugs
Penny