One Mom's Journey: Tis THE Season

Every year over the past 8 years, the Christmas season is hard. This year is no exception. How do you go on each day and want to celebrate when there is a huge hole in your heart? If you are like me, you run away. You go somewhere warm and reflect and just be quiet with yourself.

This year is extra difficult due to the year we have had. We both lost our moms this year, a granddaughter, and a dear friend’s son. To call it a hard year would be a great understatement.

We will be going to San Antonio, Texas this year for our “Christmas Trip”. Between all the losses we experienced this past year on top of the eight years without Chad we are also going through a huge system change company-wide at work. It’s been stressful at work as well as in our personal life. We both need this trip away to find a way to recharge our minds and hearts to even begin to prepare ourselves for what January through May will be at work for both of us.

I struggle daily with facing this world with this huge hole in my heart, but you start adding all the other things that are out of our control and you have a recipe for disaster if you aren’t careful. I feel like I’ve been trying to be very aware and careful with my heart and emotions, but I can honestly say I have failed far more than I have succeeded and especially this year.

It’s my hope that for not only me, but for Tebo that I’m able to find a way to decompress next week and lose myself in my thoughts and feelings so that maybe, just maybe, I can come back feeling refreshed enough to manage home and work and still finding ways/time to help with our parents. The struggle is real people and unless you have lived it you may never truly understand what a struggle it really is. Not only is it a struggle, but it is also very exhausting. Not physically so much as emotionally. I’m literally tired body, mind, and soul every day.

I’m more than grateful for the husband God blessed me with, because without him there is no way I can do what I do every day. I don’t know how he puts up with me and my emotions, but he does and does it with grace. He seems to know what to say and when to say and even more than that he knows when not to say anything and just wrap his arms around me. That’s sometimes all I need, because nothing said or done is going to take away the pain.

I don’t know what the future holds for my heart, but I do know I can always count on him to stand right beside me when I need him. I hope I can be the same support to him with the hurt he must feel over losing his mom (and really only parent he had), but I’m fearful that I will never measure up to the support and unconditional love he has shown me.

So, if I seem distant, short, absent, or any other way than “normal” to you or anyone else, please know that it isn’t intentional, it’s me trying to find my way back from what was very likely a dark place. I try very hard not to stay in the dark space, but if I were to be completely honest I do find my way there from time to time. I don’t allow myself to stay there, but I do find my way there at times. So please be patient with me as I continue to navigate this sadness and do my best to carry on with the hole in my heart.