Sleeping through Christmas




I barely remember last Christmas. I was in a total fog. I remember a few key moments like in a dream. I remember my sister gave me a very significant gift that had me burst into tears. I remember opening presents with Baby girl and NOT bursting into tears. That about does it.

Two weeks ago I was feeling like this Christmas wouldn't necessarily be better this year but that my brain wasn't quite so foggy and my head would be clearer. I would totally remember this Christmas. I was actually quite proud of myself for how well I handled Thanksgiving and Dan's birthday and was expecting to be able to handle Christmas. Well I handled it, just not how I expected.

On Thursday night I said "huh I think I'm getting a cold" On Friday morning my head was so stuffed up I could hardly think. I had a massive head cold. I was miserable. I laid on the couch and napped off and on. Friday night we had a Christmas party to go to. We went but I was so miserable I hardly talked to anyone. I sat on the couch in a daze. which made me wish all the harder that Dan was here. Dan would have sat next to me, I could have put my head on his shoulder, he would have brought me drinks. He would say "alright we've been here long enough lets go home now and put you to bed" and then he would have done that. He would have driven home while I laid on the passenger side with my eyes closed. He would have tucked me into bed with some cold medicine and then put baby girl to bed. But he's still dead. I had to drive myself home and put myself and baby girl to bed.

Saturday was Christmas eve. We did nothing. Baby girl watched tv. I laid on the couch and took three naps. I told baby girl I didn't think we were going to go to church for Christmas eve because I was sick. She was actually upset about missing church (pretty sure thats the first time ever) so I said we could go. After all, all I had to do was sit there. But then again with the driving and the keeping an eye on baby girl and the doing all the talking. Things Dan would have done for me if he were here. Or he would have taken him and Baby girl to church and I would have stayed home and rested.

Sunday was Christmas. I didn't feel any better but it was Christmas I had to make myself better. We opened all the presents Santa brought us with Grandpa and Grandma.  Then family came over for Christmas. Then we went to my dads for Christmas dinner. There was lots of activity and lots of family. There were no naps. There was no Dan. He missed another Christmas.

Today I feel quite a bit better. (still stuffy but better) We laid on the couch all day. I took a nap. I played legos with baby girl. I felt better enough to actually read facebook and blog. I feel better today. Christmas is over.

Grief is physical. It's just as physical as it is emotional. I am known for being a person that doesn't let silly things like colds stop her. When I was working I would go to work unless I was throwing up. Dan used to call me when I was sick and say things like "go lay down and rest I know you haven't... Do not do the dishes I will do them when I get home" Texts that said "you better be lying down... I don't want to see a clean house when I get home."  I always work through being sick and I let a cold lay me out for days. It was Christmas, the second one without Dan. You know the one where your supposed to be better and act happy because now your husband has been dead for almost two years instead of barley one. Because that second year is supposed to heal you, let you start new... a bunch of garbage that isn't true.

 My grief caught a cold bug and it allowed me to sleep through Christmas instead of facing the pain that he was still gone. That he didn't buy me any gifts. That I didn't buy him any. That he didn't see the delight in baby girls eyes when she opened her presents from Santa. That he didn't play legos with us today. That he didn't tell me I could rest, that he would handle everything. It was the second Christmas without my soul mate and my body made me sleep through it.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PTSD is not for sissys

Image
Do you know what PTSD is? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I bet you think you do.  You might say something like "ya its what people that go off to war have" true. You might say "It's when people see really terrible things" true. A few really smart people might say "ya my friend watched her beloved husband die and now she has it" very true. If you are a mental health professional you might say "ya a child who all of a sudden has a dad who dies will have it" also true.  I was telling a friend once about how life is now without Dan and she said "wow it's almost like you have PTSD or something." No not almost, we do. But what exactly is it? Well it's complicated. I can't describe it for baby girl because I am not in her mind (unfortunately) but I can try and describe it for me. I am hesitant to do so; it's not an easy thing to talk about, But if we are going on a the point of this blog is to be therapeutic for me and h
Read more

The Floor

Image
I pulled him off of our bed and onto the floor. The 911 dispatcher told me to. She said it would help him breathe. I grabbed his ankles and pulled hard on his legs. He fell to the floor with a loud thump. I gasped at the loudness of it, but he didn’t move on his own at all. He didn't shake his head and say, “Ow, what’d you pull me off the bed for?” He didn't do anything. He just laid there. She told me to lift his neck up to help him breathe. I tried, but it was hard to move him, and I didn't want to hurt him.  I put my head on his chest again and again, I couldn’t tell if he was breathing, I couldn’t tell if that was his heartbeat or mine that I heard as he laid on the floor.  “Daddy! Wrestle with me!” she would shout, as she jumped into him and they landed on the floor. It was their favorite game. She would pound him and he would exaggerate the impact, clutching his stomach and lifting his legs in the air.  “You got me good, baby girl!” he would tell her. She would grin i
Read more

Milestones in grief

Image
                                                                Dan and I around 2011 I wrote this for a writing contest about milestones. Writing about every grief milestone would take a book and I had a word limit so I couldn't do that. I tried to do the really big ones. I have not had a particularly eventful life. When I was eight, my parents moved, but they took me with them. At ten, I had a pretty bad accident, but I came out of it fine. My husband and I met at sixteen, and at nineteen, we went against all good advice and got married. I gave birth to our daughter when I was 27.   I loved our boring, normal life. We were living our happily ever after. I was a stay at home mom, Dan was finishing up grad school. Everyone says this kind of thing at funerals, but Dan really was the most amazing person I’ve ever met in my life. He wanted to save the world: the people, the animals, the ecosystem. He wanted to make the world better, and he was. I loved our little family and couldn
Read more