A Bittersweet Christmas

I have been remiss about posting anything since the craziness of the holidays, and for that I apologize.  I have been struggling with what to talk about, with so many things going on in our lives.  There have been so many good things, but also some loss.

Less than a week before Christmas, my husband’s uncle passed away.  It wasn’t a surprise, because he had been battling cancer for almost as long as I had known him.

I hadn’t really shared a lot of my thoughts with the family, since the grieving was still so new, and I didn’t really feel as though I really had the right to grieve.  After all, I was just his niece-in-law who had only known him for 11 years, as opposed to friends and family who had known him forever.  It’s true, I didn’t know him for a long time, but in the weeks since his passing, I realized that his passing had really struck a chord with me, and I did grieve.

I grieve for those he left behind.  I grieve for my husband, whose stories about his uncle made me think of how fun a person his uncle was without even having met him yet.  He was one of his favorite uncles, and my husband has a ton of uncles.  

I grieve for his daughters.  Having lost my own dad when I was nineteen, I knew what his daughters were going through.  And I also know what they will go through.  Every happy memory they will have in the future will have a slightly bittersweet taste, knowing that their dad is not there to share it with them.  Holidays, wedding days, births of what would have been his grandchildren,  all of it will feel incomplete even if those days are so full of love and joy.

Every time my mom spends time with my girls, she always points out how much my dad would have loved to be with his grandkids and how sad she is for him.  My mom is prone to depression, you see.  And I too would feel a little sad, even though it has been seventeen years since he died.  But then, I knew that I had to come up with something to say that would stop my mom’s spiral into sadness in its tracks, which also helps me through the sadness that starts to well up inside.  

From now on, every time my mom says “It’s so sad that your dad didn’t get to see his grandkids”, I get to say, “He actually has the best seat in the house. He gets to see them all day, everyday, more than anyone else can.”  And I know that a piece of him lives on in my precious girls, in the shape of their feet (they are my dad’s feet, poor things), the naughty twinkle in their eyes (my dad was mischievious his whole life), and their laugh, loud and boisterous, filling your soul with warmth.