Getting Through the Holidays

Yet we have gone on living,

Living and partly living.

T.S. Eliot

Everyone comes home for the holidays. If not Thanksgiving, surely Christmas.

Cathy and I started to prepare the Thanksgiving meal around 7:30 AM. None of the recipes called for large measures of tears and hugs but each dish got more than its share. When we finished and all dishes were cooking or waiting their turn, we rested. Patrick slept in. Giving in to the body's call for rest is good. Grief/mourning wears a person down. The holiday flood of emotions began before Thursday this past week. I wouldn't call it a struggle, because we aren't fighting the emotions. No good comes from fighting a foe you can't beat and emotions, a gift from God are all good to experience.

The opening of our front door and the door from the garage have distinct sounds. Almost seven months into this journey, the opening of one of those doors triggers a twinge of hope that Aaron will walk in with his non-chalant "Hey" announcing his presence. It's not going to happen...ever. Maybe its more a trigger of a memory. Maybe its a little of each. The feeling is real; a surge of energy.

Of course its illogical to have any thoughts that Aaron will return. The fact that he is dead is confusing. The notion that Aaron could come home or, we wake up from this nightmare... the world starts spinning again... God apologizes....anything feels as possible as what we are to accept as reality. A person named Charlotte Bronte is quoted as saying "Better to be without logic than without feeling." We feel the death of our son and brother in everything we do and see. Our feelings are intense as every nerve is exposed.

The next four weeks present us with an opportunity to experience Christmas in a way too many families will this year. We know thousands of American families have lost children since last Christmas. Some to accidents, war, illness, murder... For all of these families the feelings will be deep and disturbing. We won't try to escape the Holiday season, but we will likely put aside some old traditions (traditions we spent 18 years establishing with our boys). This season we will begin new traditions which include Aaron as he is today; a son gone too young, a brother gone too far.

William Wordsworth wrote "A deep distress has humanized my soul".

In Agreement,

Tom