The Bluest Season

One night in December, as we were gathering for Jazzercise class, our instructor sailed in singing: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” Our instructor is a bundle of unbridled enthusiasm about everything. But she never struck any of us as an Andy Williams fan. She’s a bit younger than me. She may not know who Andy Williams is.

“Love Christmas, do you?” asked someone.

“I love this night of Christmas,” she answered.

“December 12?”

“I love the night they wrap the toys for the kids. Those firefighters are hot!”

She was referring, of course, to the Firefighter Toy Drive in the main gym of the community center. One night each December, they clog the parking lot and descend on the gym—adults, kids, parents, firetrucks, presents, wrapping, ribbons, music, lights. They bring all the toys they have collected throughout the season and, in one night of bedlam, wrap them all. It’s fun to watch. I had just never taken any particular notice of the relative attractiveness of the gift wrappers. I stopped after class that night to take a look. My instructor is correct. Those firefighters are hot.

A lot of things changed forever when Carson died. Christmas is one of them. It’s possible, as an empty nester, I would yearn for past seasons anyway—for that time with our young kids, and the magical sheen their wonder brought to the season. That first year after we lost Carson, I came to understand: Christmas would be another casualty.

There were moments of light. Laughter with friends. Festive meals. Connection with far-flung family. I love the twinkling lights; the tree; my cozy house. But throughout the month, I found myself feeling melancholy a lot. Outside of the world. Missing my boy.

Unexpected things trigger me. We decided we’d watch all eight Harry Potter movies between Christmas and New Year. Early in the second movie, when the characters are hurtled through time and space via something called a “port key,” I experienced the same thing. I got hurtled back to 2001, when Cooper and Carson were 9 and 6. Having read the JK Rowling books together, we made it an event to attend the movie premieres, which coincidentally, often landed on Cal’s November birthday. We’d join throngs of excited people on opening night; eat pizza while we waited in the long theater lines; ignore bedtime on a school night.

Sitting on the couch in our family room, 21 years later, a rush of memories flattened me. The last time I saw this movie, I thought, Carson was here, a little boy with his whole life ahead of him. I was holding his hand in the line, answering the crazy questions he always seemed to come up with, laughing.

Grieving is hard work. But in this season where joy is pushed on you like a cultural requirement, grief is also profoundly alienating. Every jingly carol; every insipid movie; every commercial attempt to get you to buy more stuff – it all feels like an assault. A reminder that you are outside of the world. Yes, I know that I am not alone. There are plenty of us who struggle during the holidays. You don’t need to be actively grieving a loss to feel it. It’s just there is so little acknowledgment of it in our culture. Those who grieve don’t feel comfortable saying so, because we’re such a bummer for everyone else to be around. Especially in the so-called season of light. As a culture, we suck at sadness—and we often fail at helping each other through it.

So that has become my spiritual practice for Christmas: helping bereaved parents face their first holiday without their children. Together we anticipate, plan, strategize, imagine; face the feelings that are likely to arise. What will be different? What will you need? Which rituals do you keep and which do you let go? If your needs are different from the other survivors in your family, how do you navigate that? What will you say to the oblivious uncle who claps you on the back and yells “Cheer up! It’s Christmastime!”

Does this practice—serving the sad --- bring me joy? I wouldn’t use that word, exactly. But it does feel important. It offers the possibility of -- if not joy -- at least peace, and purpose. For now, it 's enough. It's the place I'm meant to be.

Merry Christmas, Carson. I like to think of you cartwheeling through the stars, asking your innumerable, unanswerable questions. We’ll keep pondering those. And we'll also eat pizza together again. Somewhere. Someday.