Christmas

I have been attempting to find the words to sum up Christmas this year and all I could decide on was difficult, emotional, bittersweet and joyful. This was not the way Christmas was suppose to be! I should not have been at the cemetery on Christmas Day visiting the grave of my two children. Recap of this event was Kevin digging out a path, leaving gifts under their tiny tree, telling them we loved and missed them, crying, uttering words of disbelief and then driving off in an attempt to celebrate with the living. Trying to compose ourselves in the car, to put on a smile, to laugh and to attempt to enjoy a holiday where three (my sons and grandma) intricate parts of my family were missing.

They say that with each year it gets easier? I don't necessarily believe that, I think we learn how to be better prepared on what to expect and experts at faking it. Christmas nor any day for that account will ever be the same in mine or Kevin's eyes or hearts. I will always look under the tree to see presents missing, a family photo minus two of my children, a sister without her twin brothers to love and us without Declan and Lucas. I understand what they mean by "easier", I think what they really mean is to grasp what our "new" normal feels like.

Opening presents was a difficult task this year, watching all the kids unwrap...yet, knowing two were missing. As I sat watching my in-laws open up there gifts for their twin girls, I so desperately wanted to be in their shoes. Very few try to place themselves in our shoes because it is the unthinkable but I longed with all my being to be in theirs. Not to switch places, just wished us both the same blessing of ALL our children alive and well. The tears came as I stared at my sister-in-law as she quietly and distantly acknowledged my unimaginable pain and then at her daughter as I tried to imagine my own son on this day. I have learned that there is a point where I can no longer hold back the tears so, I let them come. I tried to quickly let the grief over take me so, that I could again get it under control. To push it back down so that it won't consume me like it use to do. To enjoy the smile and laughter as I watch Mackenzie run around and play.

For she is the sweet in my bittersweet life. She makes me laugh and smile...ones that are real and sincere. She is the blessing that God left with us here and for her I am trying to live each day to the fullest. I do it for her, in spite of what others have either requested or even demanded me to do because for me, her happiness and Kevin's are all that truly matter.

On Christmas Day I found peace in the dark. A peace that I didn't want to let go of, a place where I could acknowledge my pain and yet, I found joy in my "new" life. I realized that my grief is still going to sneak up upon me and I will never forget my sons but I also will be blessed with immense happiness. Happiness, smiling, laughter and living doesn't mean that I am betraying my sons or their memory. It only means that I am living and sharing their lives, their story, their love with others.

A very close and wise friend left me with this quote and I never really really took it to heart and understood it until these last few days.

"Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory." ~Mitch Albom

Memory becomes my sons. It doesn't seem fair but it is all I have, it is how I hold them, how I dance with them, how I nurture them and how I love them.... Memory is all I am left with...at least for now.