Home Alone…for the holidays
No, I’m not truly home alone for the holidays. I have an incredible family surrounding me – my current family, my former families, my future families. How blessed can one woman be, in a time of such great loss?
Owen is here in his own way. He always was, so why should this year be different? Perhaps, different, because we can’t talk with him, can’t share stories of years past, years to come. We can’t see him, hear his laughter, nor his left-of-center humor. So, there is an enormous part of this year’s holiday season that feels like I’m alone. As Owen’s mother, I’m missing him so much, I feel alone in the middle of a crowd. This happens to people who haven’t recently lost a child, and I understand their pain. Loneliness happens in spite of our best efforts. I understand the pain of loss in a different way this year.
Nat, Dave, Michael, and I are experiencing these days as never before. Our extended family is feeling Owen’s loss, too, though differently, and from a slight distance, perplexed and lost in some ways, related to him. And, I can’t fix it. That was always my job before – just fix it, Mom.
I’m depending on our greater understanding of life to get us through this year end, and the new year beginning. I’m told by others who’ve lost loved ones in recent memory, that the anticipation of the holidays is worse than the days themselves. I know this to be true. The night before Thanksgiving was darker than the day. I hope this is the case with Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day.
I have so little energy to share right now, yet feel compelled to be here at the computer, searching for connections and meaning. I find connections, I find meaning…and I find that void I call home alone, because every night, when I arrive after work, to a house filled with memories and our dear cats, I feel alone, lonely. The cats rub against my legs, purr, and meow for food, but they can’t know the emptiness of a grief such as this. Good for them.
Owen, Nat, Dave, and I watched Home Alone so often over the years, that this was yet another movie memorized and recited upon viewing. A choir of scripted lines, not our personal lines really, but lines we all knew and loved, due to humor and family-friendly themes. Christmas joy…something of the past, and if we work very hard at seeing the future, something of the future. We are a family of earnest, hard workers. Can we look forward to holidays filled with gatherings of family and friends? We’ll see. My mission is to find Home Alone nothing more than a movie, from the time when my kids were young and found it funny and innocent. I watch clips from the movie, and remember our nights on the living room floor, laughing and eating popcorn, covered in blankets, and feeling that cozy thing called family.
Song for the night: Home Alone Theme, John Williams (No video…rent the movie, or grab it from your collection.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NkNnB7L4aUQ
hi there
i just randomly saw your blog and read this post. i’m so so sorry over your loss. i lost my dad when i was 12. it was just 2 days before valentine’s day. my family spent our first christmas the year before, together, in a another country. that was also our last christmas together as a family. but my mom pulled thru and kept the family together. she raised 2 children single-handedly. she pulled thru because she had us to care for.
i pray that God gives u strength to pull thru the festive season. u still have your family with u.
please try to have a Blessed Christmas. God bless u and your family.
best wishes and hugs
sharon
I stumbled upon your blog, using the WordPress TAG Surfer feature. Honestly, I had to step away after just reading a few posts. I was overwhelmed by something that I just couldn’t name.
I cleaned my bathroom, put away my laundry and waited for the name to come. Which it did – and the word is grace. I am overwhelmed by the grace in which you are handling the unthinkable.
Thank you for sharing.
Ah, yes, the anticipation is worse than the event…? I think that matches my experiences. Grief comes to me, at least, when I least expect it. Often preceded by the overwhelming urge to share something with the lost loved one, followed by the realization AGAIN that they are gone.
William Wordsworth’s sonnet, “Surprized by Joy,” focuses on something similar. He forgets for a brief moment that his daughter is dead. When he turns to share his joy with her, joy he feels when he ses a beautiful scene, he is hit with the reality of his loss. Then he beats himself up for allowing himself to forget his grief for even a moment.
Linda: I guess all of us could have “home alone” written on our hearts at various times. The amazing moments are when we DON’T feel lonely-when we make a “connection” as you refer to it. You were one of my “amazing connections” this year. I felt so pulled by your wonderful writing skills and Owen’s mysterious story. But the true friendship that blossomed has been an enormous, miraculous blessing. Wishing you a Merry Christmas! Love, Lonnette
Like you, I’m hoping our grasp of ‘the big picture’ will carry us through this. Anticipation has always been a form of torture for me. Raising a daughter with life-threatening seizures turned my fight-or-flight respose on permanently. Even now it’s after four in the morning and I’m sitting here, waiting, watching over my loved one, listening, ready for…? I am also hoping that the anticipation of the day is more painful than the day itself. I am sad, but my thoughts are all of love. I am thinking of Owen and Seanna tonight. He played the guitar? I hope so. Seanna would treat him like a god if she met him with a guitar in hand. Above all, she was fascinated by the humble guitar.
without,
steph
I hope that the reality was finally better than the expectation (and dread).
And even if it wasn’t, at least it’s over. One more tiny milestone.
Spirits up.
(I could write that differently, but I thought that “Fuck, it hurts,” might just possibly offend, however much it were painfully true …).
Fuck, it hurts, works just fine. The truth usually does.