Not Very Merry

I had premonitions about this Christmas.

Perhaps I should have paid more attention.

I was asked to write our Team’s Holiday letter to our nonprofit clients.

My colleagues rejected it for being too sad.

“It’s not sad,” I said, “it’s realistic. Look at everything going on right now. I can’t possible send a cheery, all is well with the world letter. It would not be honest.”

“Heather, I read this and felt terrible.”

Fine, fine, fine….to their defense, as I was writing the San Bernardino shooting was unfolding so it might have been a touch melancholy. 

The next day I did my knee in.

This is not the end of the world but I do tend to work out my angst by working out. I also like cookies. And I tend to work those out too. There has been no working out in December; hence my overindulgence of cookies and angst.

I knew I was going in on a blue streak and I think I was okay with that. Not every Christmas in my life has been happy. 

One Christmas Eve was spent at relatives in Illinois. There was a HUGE pile of presents under the tree and all I got was a crappy Candy Land. I cried hysterically because my cousin got a Baby-Burps a lot AND matching Baby Burps A lot outfits! 

My mother drug me out of my Aunt’s house apologetically telling everyone I was fine, just a tad overstimulated.

Overstimulated my foot. I totally got jipped. Forty years later and I still have an aversion to Candy Land. 

Stupid Gumdrop Mountain.  

That was a blue Christmas.

Another time the whole family got the stomach flu at my Grandma’s house. She only had two bathrooms. Green Christmas.

But I wasn’t quite prepared for this Christmas. 

The 23^rd greeted me with the loss of two of our Littles in the special needs community. Two in one day….two too many.

Seven too many this year.

I stood in the shower that morning watching the soap circle the drain thinking ‘I don’t know how to process this much loss.’

While scrubbing my feet I decided 2016 was a great year to return to therapy. I do love therapy and an hour to talk about me and only me. But more important was the realization that this community has a lot of unbelievable loss- loss that needs to be acknowledged but cannot be carried alone.

The Christmas after we lost Samantha, some good friends found a spot on a tiny island in British Columbia and planted a tree in her memory. The tree was a Charlie Brown spruce with a tuft of needles reminiscent of Samantha's crazy hair. 

Our friends hike up to "Sammy's Point" every Christmas to hang an ornament and take a picture of how her tree has grown.

This year they placed an ornament in memory of our other Littles too. 

Thank you great Northern Friends. 

I don't know how to close out this holiday. My heart breaks for these parents and how their lives have changed. 

And I fear we might all get stuck in Molasses Swamp with the infamous Grandma Nutt when all we wanted was a Baby Burps A lot. 

Bah Humbug. 

To 2016. 

And therapy.