The Christmas season is a whirlwind for everyone. It seems like we anticipate it for ages, but then it comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Our Christmas this year has been an interesting one… in some ways, easier than we expected and in others, just as hard. We’ve talked about a lot of aspects of grief on this blog over the last year, touching on how we were doing a month and a half out from Kamri’s death, posts on Anger, Trust, Hurt, and Realness, how months six/seven/eight felt, as well as the joy of sharing the news of expecting Kamri’s brother, the mix of emotions another baby brings, and some of our thoughts as we anticipate Kamri’s one year birthday. You can read any of those posts by clicking those links above. It has been a year that we have committed to sharing many of the facets of our grief and trusting that there is a reason that God has put it on our hearts to do so. However hard it may be.
I thought it might be helpful to sit down and try and put into words how (our) grief has intersected with the season of Christmas, “the most wonderful time of the year”. Helpful for me, because I process things best through writing and talking, but also maybe helpful for others. We are not the only ones hurting this season. There are countless other people who may find themselves in a similar position. Maybe it is you… or maybe it’s someone you love and care about and you’d give anything to have a glimpse into their experience to know better how to pray for and love them well these next few days. I don’t know… but, as we’ve been reminded over and over again… God does. So we’ll just let this be what it is. I will tell you a little bit of our experience this last month and we’ll let it live here on the blog for whatever reasons God may have.
Overall, this season has been confusing. Grief, in and of itself is confusing, but the addition of the heightened merriment of everyone else (and for us, the one year anniversary of everything Kamri-related) makes for a melting pot of confusing and conflicting emotions. We can only speak personally to our story, so that is what we’ll stick to. This last month feels like the most absurd deja vu you can imagine. After all, we just did all of this.
What is most heartbreaking for me is to watch everyone else’s “last year to this year” comparisons and they almost all reflect the passing of a year’s worth of time. My friends that were pregnant with me now have one year olds. Families we know that have children… they are all one year older. Some people have the addition of pets or changes to their homes or jobs, Christmas cards share pictures of vacations that were enjoyed over the year. One year of time has passed, but for Mitch and I, the 2017 snapshot of our life at this point looks eerily like the one from 2016.
It is still just the two of us. Kamri is not here and again, we find ourselves awaiting the day we can see her. I am pregnant. Our Christmas card still shows two parents, holding representations of their children. For us, 2016 and 2017 do not indicate that a full year of time has passed.
If you remember, back in the beginning of the year (I believe it was in the “how are we doing?” post), we talked about the sensation that December felt like “just yesterday”. That feeling has not changed this entire year… the day Kamri was born and our month with her in CHOP has always felt like it happened “just yesterday”. In some ways, it has felt like it should be December in our lives and our home ever since December ended last year, so when the Christmas music started playing on the radio and decorations started coming out again, Mitch and I felt ourselves saying, “Well, duh, world. Finally you’ve caught up… this is the reality we’ve been living in all year”.
This is all so confusing because as much as it feels like no time has passed at all… like our year-to-year snapshots are exactly the same… we are also aware that so much has happened in the span of one year. Since last December, we had a daughter. We got to know her and she got to know us. We navigated a seemingly impossible medical world and made one big decision after another on behalf of the very thing we love most in the world. We learned what it feels like to hold your child for the first and last time. We learned what it feels like to watch her take her last breath. We planned a funeral for our one month old. We escaped to Florida for a week and got lost in a sunny, cheerful world that did not know us or our story. We painted our kitchen. We went back to work. We struggled with knowing what the future of our jobs would be. We planted a garden. We attended weddings and funerals of other people. We found out we were pregnant and learned it is a boy. We coasted through holidays. I finished my almost-six year calling as Youth Director at our church and we said goodbye to that chapter of our lives. We painted a new nursery for our son and bought a new rocker. We took an updated family picture and sent out Christmas cards. And here we are, one year later. We are different people, with a full year of time under our belts.
Everything has changed and nothing has changed.
Deja vu is a curious experience. Yesterday, we went in for our 32 week appointment, remembering all to clearly that last year we had an appointment the Friday before Christmas as well. At that point, I was desperate for Kamri to come and just wanted to hear that I had progressed and maybe the start of labor was not far off. As it turned out, she was totally comfortable where she was and we decided to forge ahead and celebrate Christmas in full visit-each-family fashion and she would come when she comes. I remember the unbridled joy of those couple of days… it was Christmas! And any moment now, our daughter would be here! Fast forward a year and again, we find ourselves at the doctor’s office for a check up the Friday before the holidays.
Today, Mitch and I made big strides in the “preparing for Baby Boy” department. We were on a roll and decided to go for it and install the car seat bases in both of our cars and bring up the pack ‘n play and set it up in our room. All went fine except UM, WE JUST FRICKIN DID THIS. (That is the toned down version.) There is a mix of accomplishment and sorrow. Another item checked off the list in preparation for our son. Another experience that we had to both do and undo for Kamri. I have videos of us setting up the pack ‘n play, squealing with delight and exclaiming “this is where you’re going to sleep, Kamri!”. I have pictures of Mitch, hard at work tweaking the car seat settings, using a stuffed animal as his “practice Kamri”. While Kamri was in the hospital, our parents came over to our house and took down the pack ‘n play so we wouldn’t have to. Mitch describes the pain of seeing her car seat in his car the night she was flown to CHOP as… well, indescribable. This season, this world of “didn’t we just do all of this?” is, at its very core, confusing.
In terms of general Christmas-time involvement, we’ve both dipped our toes in here and there where it feels okay and avoided the pond all together. We don’t overwhelm ourselves with Christmas music, but have also turned it on when we feel like it. Because sometimes we feel like it. We bought presents for our family, but really struggled to come up with answers when they ask what is on our list. Really, there is only one thing and she’s spending the season with Jesus. We did not get a tree, but mid-way through the month, decided to set up a “Kamri tree”. It’s about 2 feet tall and sits right in the middle of our house so we can see it from several rooms. Mitch found a big pink bow for the top that looks just like her and we added white lights and some Kamri-sized pink ornaments. It is beautiful and we love it (especially because the top looks just like the little curl of a ponytail/ mohawk she always sported), but gazing at it is bittersweet. How much more would we rather be gazing at her. There has been no cookie-making or Christmas movies, but I did manage to hang a red wreath on our door and you can smell Christmas-scented candles throughout the house. It has been a season of some, but not all. We just do what feels okay and coast right on past what doesn’t.
There is a tug-of-war that happens around Christmastime. We should be happy because we’ve never not been happy at Christmas and all of the sights, smells, and sounds still trigger joyful feelings and nostalgic memories. But it’s not that easy because we miss Kamri and so deeply feel the emptiness of where she would and should be in our lives and home. Those same things that trigger joy also trigger longing and trauma and sadness. Instead, we find ourselves experiencing two things at the same time: our own pain and other people’s joy. It’s like we are looking in on the happiness of those around us, but can’t quite feel it ourselves. Almost like looking through a window into another family’s world, while remaining firmly in our own. We catch glimpses of joy and wafts of good smells and can sometimes participate peripherally, but our Christmas this year is a blurry version of everyone else’s.
To be honest, we’ve come to terms with that. Do we look around and wish our life was different, wish our year, and our story were different? Of course. Do we get jealous of everyone else who seems to get to enjoy the season without the weight of loss or the empty space of someone who should be there and isn’t? More and more as Christmas day draws nearer. Do we ask Jesus over and over again why we can’t have Kamri here with us? Every single night. All of that is true. BUT, we refuse to not celebrate, even in whatever “watered down” way we are choosing to do so this year. We will never not celebrate and honor the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the reason we get to be Kamri’s parents at all and He is the reason we get to be with her for eternity someday. There is nothing more beautiful to celebrate. For that reason, this is what we chose for the back of our Christmas card this year:
Happy Birthday, Jesus… thank you for how much you love us and thank you for how much you love Kamri. We love you.