There is no getting around it. Losing a loved one during the holidays is completely awful. Of course, a death in the family is never pleasant, but there is an added pain when it happens right at a time when society at large is “jolly.”
It is okay to laugh at this blog even though it might feel morbid. My life over the past couple of weeks has felt like a cosmic black comedy. It is one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” kinds of things.
My father-in-law (FIL) telephoned me early Monday morning to tell me that my mother-in-law (MIL) had passed away that morning. She was not in very good health, but we still did not see this coming. He could barely get the words out to me, so I told him to write me a list of who needed to be notified, and I would take care of it. (Always the child abuse survivor being the strong one.) I then left to tell hub and my brother-in-law (BIL) in person separately.
Of course, that morning, my son and I had distributed Christmas presents to the staff at his school. I had worn my tackiest Christmas sweatshirt for the occasion, with Santa and the presents falling out of his sleigh. So, yes, that is what I was wearing when I delivered the devastating news to hub and to BIL.
Hub took the news hard, so I just sat there with him for a long time. Then, I drove out to tell BIL, dreading how he would react. I turned on the radio to distract myself, only to hear the opening of the song, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” I thought to myself, “Yep. That’s about right in my life.”
I have never had to be the one to call a list of people to deliver the news that someone they loved had passed away. The reactions were all over the map, intermixed with goofy answering machine messages with Santa saying, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” One person took the news calmly. The next went into hysterics. A third said, “Oh, s@#$,” and then apologized. (I assured him that was my first reaction as well.) I was careful to break the news gently, so I was taken aback when another woman yelled to her husband, “XXX died!”
The weirdest part of losing a loved one during the holidays is sorting the mail. Each day, I would pull a large pile of envelopes out of the mailbox and sort them into “Happy Holidays” and “Sympathy” piles. Believe it or not, I even had one that combined the two, writing this on the back of the Christmas card: “You son is growing so big. Our grandchildren are now roommates in college. We were sorry to hear about hub’s mother’s death. Love, XXX”
You gotta laugh to keep from crying.
During a time of year in which I am already struggling even in the best of circumstances, losing a loved one was really hard. It plays with your head to have people all around you singing “Holly, Jolly Christmas” while your family is falling apart emotionally. There is no getting around it – losing a loved one during the holidays is simply awful.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onMy Absolutely Insane Christmas â??Holidayâ??: Losing Loved One at …Here’s a quick excerptIt plays with your head to have people all around you singing “Holly, Jolly Christmas” while your family is falling apart emotionally. There is no getting around it – losing a loved one during the holidays is simply awful. … […]
Faith, you’re exactly right ‘you gotta laugh to keep from crying’. up close it’s awful, the knife is twisting. Pulling back and viewing what you’re describing from like a movie watcher perspective, it is funny. Kinda like a Chevy Chase vacation movie where the mother-in-law is put on top of the roof of the car or, Little Miss Sunshine – the whole grandpa thing. My family did some funny things after my dad died. My sister didn’t want to carry the urn across the street from the parking lot to the church (I dont know, she didn’t want people to know he was dead… what?), so she put it in a brown paper bag with a bright colored logo of a local discount store on it. When we went to dump his ashes, we couldn’t get the urn open. We had to bang on it. Then my brother-in-law did the eulogy – he told a story of my dad in the kitchen wearing a pair of shorts with one long leg and one short leg… oh brother – cost of the shorts $5, look on the priest’s face… priceless.
I hope you and your family are doing ok today.
Only the best wishes for you Faith
~palucci
Faith,
I totally understand this.
I don’t suppose there is ever a good time for a parent or one you love to pass on.
In my case, it was my dad, and I was 5 months pregnant with my youngest son. This was also the time when memories were coming out of nowhere, seemingly from someone else’s life. We were in Mexico for my brother’s wedding. My dad died in the airport on his way to mexico, they pulled the plug on my brother’s wedding day. January 7th. Oh, I remember it well.
I hope you can get through this season with a smile and your sanity. Please remember you are special to many. I am sorry for your loss. I will help in any way possible.
ROFL!!
Oh my gosh!! Your stories would make a great movie, too! :0)
– Faith
It’s never a good time of the year to lose someone. I’m glad you were able to be so strong when your family needed you. Personally, I completely withdraw when it comes to death. When my grandfather was dying, I refused to go with the rest of my family to be there, and I didn’t go to the funeral. Not because I didn’t love him–God knows I did–but because I simply couldn’t handle it. The most I could do is buy a “Get Well Soon” card . . . because they don’t seem to make “Sorry You’re Dying” cards . . . but I didn’t even manage to mail it in time. Rather than send it anyway, and put my grandmother through the horror of opening a “Get Well” card for her late husband, I kept it, and now it’s a reminder of one of my big failures. Hopefully, the next time I’m faced with a situation like that, I’ll be able to be stronger.
I’m so sorry. This made it so hard. Christmas time is hard anyway, so sorry you lost someone you cared about so much. I have been thinking of you though.
My grandpa died about a month ago. The holidays just seems so depressing. I have all these emotions and feelings whirling inside of me but I don’t know how to express them let alone get them out. At the funeral I had to be the strong one and step up when no one else would. Now I just live day by day wishing at times the days would pass by faster.
Faith you are inspiring from what I have read so far.