New Year’s Grief
And other gut punches
No one warned me midnight on December 31st, 2018 would feel like gut punch. When you’ve lost a loved one, you expect holidays to be difficult. You think about the big ones like Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, etc. Why didn’t I ever hear anyone talk about New Year’s?
My grief process has been a mix of expected and unexpected reactions (to experiences and sometimes to nothing at all). Of course I expect to cry when I hear a song that triggers a memory of my dad. I also expect to be upset the morning after I have a dream that includes him. There are far more things I can’t explain — like why did I start crying at work or in the car or at the gym? I honestly can’t pinpoint triggers.
My husband and I were lying awake in bed at midnight on December 31st, 2018. We’d gone to bed much earlier, but our neighborhood’s love for fireworks on all holidays prevented us from sleeping. A sudden cacophony of blasts prompted him to check the time. With his sleepy wish of “Happy New Year,” I began to cry.
I suddenly realized the dawning of 2019 meant my father died “last year.”
Last year… a monumental linguistic change in magnitude of time I wasn’t ready for.
While my neighborhood was lit up like the National Mall on 4th of July, I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad. I was somehow expected to celebrate a future that wouldn’t include him.
In the first week of 2019, I had this experience validated by others who have lost a loved one. Why I hadn’t I considered New Year’s might be difficult?
A new doctor visit means lots of paperwork. In the case of the ENT I recently visited — 30 minutes of paperwork. One page was devoted to family medical history. I had forgotten about this part. You need to mark, from a very robust menu, ailments for each of your family members. You also need to mark living or deceased.
I saved my dad’s living/deceased status for last. I didn’t want to mark it at all. Could I leave it blank? The obedient student in me said absolutely not — for a moment I flashed back to elementary school standardized testing: all answers must be complete and marks must be heavy and dark.
When I returned home, I gave myself some time to cry about it.
The six-month mark came quickly — my counselor pointed it out before I realized. That milestone brought with it the realization that I need more reminders of him around me. I placed a few of the mementos from family and friends, which had been sitting in boxes in the corner of my home office. I even started remembering my dreams again — even though that usually meant my dad was in them.
More often than not, it’s the little things that get me…
Sometimes I have to think extra hard to remember what his voice sounds like.
When all I want to do is call him just to chat.
I know in a few weeks I won’t get a call from him singing happy birthday to me.
I’ve tried to understand my grief process — and the process in general — from many angles. It wasn’t difficult to take a metacognitive approach to this process. Any excuse to escape it, right?
I realized early on there was one question, in many forms, that constantly popped into my head: “Where’s dad?” Neither the logical, nor the emotional part of my brain has been able to resolve that he isn’t coming back. He isn’t at the neighbor’s house having a cup of tea. He isn’t with his buddies from his men’s group prepping for the next BBQ fundraiser. He isn’t at the youth center where he regularly volunteered. He isn’t, and he won’t be, anywhere.
Even after forcing myself to change my language — to actually say out loud that he’s dead — my brain struggles to resolve the concept. Cue even more explainable and unexplainable emotional reactions.
I’m sure more days and situations will blindside me. There’s no way to predict or prepare for grief to show itself. But now someone has warned you that New Year’s could be a difficult holiday. Now you know.
