Episode 6 - Facing the First Holidays

After a loved one dies, facing the holidays can be difficult. In this episode, I talk about how I coped with the first holiday season after Terry died. 

Whether you are deep in grief, as I was that first holiday season, or you have lived through many holidays without your loved one, I hope you search for joy, as I did, that first holiday season alone.

Transcript

Welcome back to my podcast: A Grief Journey. My name is Kay Colley, and I’m your host. 

 This is the sixth episode of my podcast series and today I’m going to talk about facing your first holidays alone. We are about to complete the holiday season triumvirate with New Year’s, so I hope this podcast finds you before that day. 

 To really understand how the first holiday season looked for me after Terry died, I want to provide some context.

 First of all, we had always said we were going to establish family traditions for the holidays. We never really did, so our holidays varied from year to year. Before my mother died, well before she went into a nursing home, we were usually at her house for Christmas with family coming in and out of the house most of the day all dayat Christmas. After mom went into the nursing home, family gatherings were very different. So one year, Terry and I decided to do what we had always wanted to do for Christmas—be at the beach. I called mom and told her we would visit her when we were coming home. We packed up our stuff, headed to Galveston Island. The weather was great. We were having a good time, then my sister called and left a message on my phone. I called her back and found out my mother had died. It was Christmas Day. 

 In a previous podcast I mentioned this and talked about how this related to regret, which it does. But I’m telling this story just to provide context for facing your first holiday alone, particularly after a spouse dies. But as you can see, having your mother die on Christmas Day can also add to the grief of facing the holidays without a beloved spouse. 

 And one last bit of context: Terry died on August 31. So the year of firsts were all of the holidays, and they were just a few months after her death. 

 So just three months after her death, I had the first of three holidays to face: Thanksgiving. I had moved into an apartment, which was probably the best thing for me because there were constantly people around. It wasn’t like I was accustomed to: going to work and being around lots of people, then coming home and it was just the two of us. Instead, there were lots of people all of the time. I think that kept me from getting stuck in a really dark place, especially since COVID made seeing people more challenging. I made some friends who were about my age, who would just call me up and say: “Come on down. We’re having dinner.” So I would. We hung out together a lot. If I had still been in our house, that wouldn’t have happened. 

 And while I spent those first three months hanging out with people at the apartment complex, I also spent that time reaching out to friends I hadn’t talked with in some time re-establishing connections. Some of them were people who had experienced a loss like I had, so we talked about that. I’d say there was one lesbian couple, one straight couple at my apartment complex, a work friend and my oldest friend who checked up on me regularly. If I didn’t call them, they would call me or text. So as Thanksgiving drew closer, a group of friends at the apartment complex decided to do a Friendsgiving dinner, but instead of doing that, I planned this elaborate send off for Terry in Galveston. 

 I rented a house on the beach. Invited my family, my closest friend from college, two other friends. Galveston was one of Terry’s two favorite places, so I couldn’t think of any place better for her ashes. It was not only the first time I’d been to Galveston since my mother died, but I was doing one of the things Terry had always wanted to do—rent a house on the beach for the holidays. My college friend and her family came. Some of my family came as well. The way I had scheduled it, I would never be alone, but that isn’t how it happened. People got sick and weren’t able to come. Schedules changed. I was alone in the house several days. I walked the beach. Picked up shells and sand dollars broken in half. I went to visit a friend and her husband and stayed with them away from Galveston. The winter in Galveston is a bit sparse, so there weren’t many people in the houses nearby. Most of them were rentals and empty. Staying at that house was how I imagined my life would have been if I’d still lived in our house those two months right after Terry’s death—lonely beyond words. Instead, of coming home to that loneliness in an empty house, I had surrounded myself with people literally and figuratively by moving to an apartment right before Terry died and consistently calling and visiting people those first few months following her death. 

 When I returned home after Thanksgiving, I was dreading Christmas, but more importantly New Year’s Eve. We had always celebrated New Year’s Eve, and for many years that was attending a New Year’s Dance. I knew I needed to do something for New Year’s that would put me around people, but not a party or dance. And I needed to be around people I could trust, who would be there for me when I cried.

  I got off work early before Christmas and went to the San Antonio Riverwalk to see the Christmas lights. I’d always wanted to do that, so I did. I bought most of my presents along the Riverwalk and walked up and down by myself, looking at the lights. There were times when it was beautiful and joyous. There were more times when I was lonely and sad. I had planned to spend some time at Christmas with family then head to my friend’s house to celebrate with her and her family and ring in the New Year. And that’s what I did. Having a friend who has known me most of my life and has been there through so many of life’s challenges really helped get me through that first Christmas season without Terry. We talked. We played games. She was just there for me, just like she had been when my mother died. 

 After the New Year came and went, I headed back home and started back to work. I thought, whew, been through those first holidays. I can breathe a sigh of relief. But the holidays just kept coming and Terry just continued to stay gone. So I had to go through this holiday planning again and again, which wasn’t my role in our relationship. Terry was the one who planned things like parties and holiday get togethers. She was the more social one. I wasn’t, but what I learned in that first year of holidays was that I couldn’t just sit back. I couldn’t wait for things to happen. 

 Much like when I decided I’d accept invitations to go to parties and get togethers, I had to get out of the role I’d been accustomed to playing for 19 years. For me, being around my friends, both new and old, and my family helped me cope with the first holidays alone because I wasn’t so alone. 

 I also rediscovered my love of college basketball and attended several games around the holidays. But at the end of each day, and for many other days, I was alone, and because it was the holidays, I felt even more alone, so I sat and watched TV that made me feel good. I would just sit and stare at the TV for hours until someone would call and get me out of my funk—for at least 30 minutes. 

 I cried, a lot. I cried when a certain song would come on. I can’t remember which ones now, but, I cried…I cried when I tried dancing because it reminded me of the times Terry and I danced at the club, for New Year’s Eve and at home in our kitchen. I cried when I went to bed. I cried in the bath tub. When I got out my coats and gloves for the cold weather, I cried when I smelled the gloves because they smelled like her. And sometimes, I still cry. It isn’t as much as I did during that first Christmas alone, but there are times when it still hits me…the grief and the longing for a life unfinished. That will never be finished, at least how I had envisioned.

 So this year, once again, I am building my life during the holidays. Establishing those traditions we’d always said we’d establish, but this time as my own. Is it hard? Absolutely. Sometimes, it hurts more than words can express, but other times, it is joyous. That’s what I’m trying to focus on now, and what I tried to focus on that first holiday season alone: Joy. And when I find the joy, I am reminded of the joy Terry and I had together, then I don’t feel so alone.

 And that wraps it up for the sixth episode of A Grief Journey. Thank you all for listening to this holiday episode. On our next episode, we’ll talk about the New Year and how to face it without your loved one.

 Remember, grief is a process, so keep moving through it. 

 This is Kay Colley. See you next time!