Holiday Prep

There is a lot of pressure during the Holiday season. There is pressure from the family to get together, there is pressure from the stores to spend our money there, there is a palpable external pressure to be Happy. Today is such and such Holiday. I MUST be happy.

I tend to be a happy person. Seriously though, why do I have to be happy the 4th Thursday in November and on the 25th of December. I am the same me I was on the 2nd Thurs in Nov and the same me will be around the 27th of December.

I decided that I can't try to make this holiday season the "best" for our bugs and for ourselves. I am going to let it just happen and unfold the way it must; with all it's glamour and ugliness, with the trappings of joy and sorrow we feel. I don't want to force our bugs into thinking they have to feel a way that they don't.

Sitting in a room with family highlights who is missing. Not being able to talk about it and keeping a stiff upper lip is isolating. Family pictures are not for us. I know we need to celebrate the family we are and the family we have. The snap of the shudder with us "all together" is a misnomer.

Don't get me wrong. We want to have fun. We don't want to mope. But we just may not be there on the prescribed day. My experience notes it's the exact opposite. If I HAVE to feel a certain way, the pressure becomes too much and the exterior crumbles.

We all have someone we miss at the holiday table. It's ok to miss them. It's ok to cry. It's ok to smile and have fun too. It's not ok to expect- to expect grief or joy. Those two emotions are intertwined.

We don't have to put on a air of grief so as not to dishonor those who've died. We don't have to put on an air of joy to make all around feel safe. We are who we are no matter what the calendar dictates.

After Eric died, I made it my mission that I would not let the timeliness of his hospitalization (the day after Thanksgiving, 7 years ago) and his death- Dec 16, 2003- affect my enjoyment of the holiday season. It was working.

I haven't had the time or energy to think that far ahead this year. But I do know that we celebrate these holidays for a reason. One that is much bigger than the deaths of my children. Thanksgiving is a way to remember the beginnings of this great country that allows me the freedoms I enjoy and take for granted. Freedom to worship my God and to live to Blog about it.

Christmas is at the right time for the Benton Family. What better way to remember why we have Joy and Hope? We celebrate the birth of the WHOLE reason that I can get out of bed in the morning and face the day. The WHOLE reason that I can deal with my pain and shoulder that of our bugs.

Last year we knew our sweet baby girl would die sooner than we wanted. We hoped that she could recover. We pressed on with our traditions and balanced time with our four little ladybugs. It should have been a bad Thanksgiving. But how could it have been? Got to kiss my 4 sweet baby girls. I got to hang out with the love of my life too. Sure it's a haze, but I do remember those things. I am so thankful for that.

7 years ago- we did not know how our lives were about to change. We were caught up in hosting Thanksgiving and brining a bird. I had a pair a big blue eyes look at me with adoration. I heard Eric's belly laugh for the first time Thanksgiving night. Good memories I think.

Someday we will be over involved with the Holiday hoopla and get all excited and bent out of shape about the dumb things that annoy us all. This year we will take a step back and just let it be and see what forms out of the shadows of our experiences, knowing full well God is walking us down that path and is casting the light so we can have a shadow.