Alexander James

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child loss

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holidays

Grieving The Holidays

For those that know me personally, this will not be new information. For those that don’t, here is a little slice of my life.

We lost my dad on Halloween this year. He was out in the woods, doing what he loved – hunting, and had a fatal heart attack. We didn’t actually find out till almost two days later. It wasn’t too unusual for him to not call for a day when hunting but he still was always sending out e-mails which is what tipped my mom off that something was wrong. Losing my dad was incredibly hard and I cried for the first few days straight. He was a cancer survivor and tried to take better care of himself since he went into remission a decade ago. We had his service a week and a half later and we were just getting back into some sort of rhythm in life again. My mom, my husband, and I had returned to work. The kids started a new daycare and were loving it. We were mentally preparing for the upcoming holidays without my dad around. He did usually add a little extra humor and always his two cents on things going on. Thanksgiving came and went. It was sad for me to celebrate it without him but we had made it.

Then the next day happened. Our son, Alex, was found by my husband unresponsive during his nap. We don’t know exactly what happened other than he had started getting sick on the evening of Thanksgiving, was diagnosed with strep throat and scarlet fever at the pediatrician the next morning, and died within 24 hours of the onset of his symptoms. One day I’ll share the story but it’s still too soon and too fresh. We are shattered and heartbroken by all of these events and are to this day just taking it one day at a time.

December was extremely difficult. We did not want to celebrate at all but tried to make the best of it for Audrey, Alex’s twin sister. We hung up more pictures of him, talk about him often, and remember him every second of the day. We put up Alex’s stocking and are going to donate some of the gifts we got him and place some others at his grave.

The mornings are more difficult for Andrew as that is when he would snuggle with him the most and Alex was more clingy with him, wanting Andrew to read him stories and watch Blippi with him. The evenings are more difficult for me as that’s when Alex was more clingy with me and would only settle down to sleep after I snuggled him and read him stories and gave him lots of kisses. Every night when I go to bed I can’t help but think, “well, I made it through another day without him”. Cause it takes all of my energy to actually be productive and not just lay around and be sad all day.

All of my favorite holidays and all of my days will never be the same.

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Grief

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Kristen

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