These aren’t my words but they so easily could be…
It’s a love/hate thing…these Christmas decorations I tackled the other day. Hate to do it, Love it when it’s done. BUT it’s more than that..it’s Christmas for a grieving mum (parent) and let me just tell you a few things you may not know that may indeed help you should you know a grieving mum.
We are able to put on a performance worthy of any Oscar, Emmy or big award.
When we are gathered around the table at Christmas, we will be pleasant and smile and yes, even joke but inside our heart still breaks be it a month, a year, 10 years…our eyes will wander on the chair our child would have been sitting in. And we will cry in the dark once everyone has gone to sleep.
We will deck the halls for Christmas especially if we have other children. Oh, don’t get me wrong, we do experience tremendous joy with those we love but we also have tremendous sadness over the one that is not here.
We know every story behind every ornament and while so many will buy new, beautiful things to put on the tree or fill the house…we will always use the old, sometimes broken ornaments and decorations because once the hands of our child touched and held them and they are treasured more than the most expensive items you can find for they are the most beautiful, the priceless ones and they will be used year after year and we just don’t care what anyone else thinks!
We are forced to start new traditions and we do because we are a Mum and because our child would expect no less from us, but our heart yearns for those same traditions we once had… and we are sad.
We will be in the crowds shopping to buy the perfect gifts for our family and no matter how much time has passed we will still see items and think it is the perfect one for our child… until we remember the child is not here. And so we will go to a floral department and carefully pick out just the perfect flowers worthy to adorn our child’s grave while we try to fight back the tears.
We may send Christmas cards and sign our names and with every single card, we are reminded of the one name we can’t sign anymore and we wonder if those receiving the card will remember that name.
Same with pictures…. we will admire the beautiful faces of our family while our hearts remember the face that is missing. We will attend those events and functions and perform perfectly but if you take just a second and look, really look, you can ALWAYS see the hint of sadness that is forever in a grieving Mum’s eyes.
I’ve said that the eyes cannot hide the grief ever, it is always there, a little bit of light is gone and the smile never quite reaches the eyes all the way.
But it doesn’t mean we don’t have many moments of happiness.
Should you take a minute to mention our child’s name to us and share some story or thought…. For just that minute you will be privileged to see the light in our eyes that will quickly be gone again… Until someone else does the same..
