Holiday Cards for The Grieving

Day 1855.

This is a repost by popular demand.
Apparently, I am not the only one who feels this way.

I wrote it 1023 days ago.
Does it still stand?
I check it over.
I remembered it being rather strong, even for me… but it is still spot, fucking, on!

In the interest of informing, rather than shaming…
I post this BEFORE all the holiday cards are written, because, as my Mum says…
”It seems obvious once you’ve read it.”

It’s Jan 2, 2019, to you.

It’s 824 days since Luke died, for me.

It’s a new year for most people.
But it’s now apparent that for me, new years come not at the change of the date, at the arrival of January, but at the arrival of my son Luke’s death date.
That’s my calendar and yes!… everything revolves around that.

2019, for me, is just another date that Luke will never know.

Since my son died, I run away from Christmas.
But returning home, as eventually, we all must, I am faced with my altered reality once more.

The greetings for Christmas and New Year, piled up in cards and on Facebook, each wishing for us joy, happiness, love and laughter.
They are not personal greetings, they are generic, they are not really aimed at those who suffer as we do.

The salutations to the three living members of our family are agony.
All I see is the gaping hole where Luke’s name would once have been.
Each card, a reminder that we have lost our Luke. 
We all see it.

These cards are sent to bring us seasonal good wishes.
But I receive each as a card that reminds us, by the gaping absence of his name, that Luke is dead, with an attached list of joyous emotions I can no longer access, followed by a variety of platitudes evoking the concept of moving on into a new year, fresh slate clean towards bigger and brighter things.
Well, I no longer move on, I just move forward.

Nobody intentionally sends out cards to hurt us.
Nobody says:
“Ooh, we must send the Scotts a card to highlight all that they have lost and include a list of coveted emotions that they can no longer access!”

Living in America there is much observance of those who don’t celebrate Christmas. The protocol is to write Happy Holidays or something about the season. 
So where is the protocol for us? For the grieving?

At Christmas, the non-Christians are like the vegetarians at the Hog Roast.
“Oh yes! we can do this for the vegetarians”
“Oh yes! we write this for the non-Christians”
but when it comes to the vegans it’s…
“Well, we can’t cater for everyone”

So how did the vegetarians make the A list?
How did the non-Christians make the A list, even on a Christian holiday?
How do people with dead kids get on that A list?

A non-Christian getting a Christmas Card may be offended - (not my lot, by the way).
People with dead kids getting a reminder that their child is dead with an attached list of unachievable emotions that will never be theirs again are not offended, they are saddened, crushed, isolated.
Not the intention, I am sure.
But that’s what it does.

The first few are the hardest, but the others hurt too.
“Try to accept the good intentions with which the card was meant”.. yep tried that. It still fucking destroys me.

So, if you are sending Christmas or Holiday Cards out of duty - DON’T!
If you are sending them because that is what you are supposed to do and don’t have time to personalize them - DON’T!

I plan to start a line of holiday cards printed white gloss on white with the greeting
Keep Breathing this Christmas & Be kind to yourself in the New Year

Yep, it needs work, but it basically covers all of us who are struggling, for whatever reason, during the seasonal frenzy of family and idealism, where the greeting happy fucking anything- is a challenge.

I spend it surrounded waist-deep in family where I can hide my agony.
My husband Adam’s family has no contact with us - so double, triple agony for him.
This is real-world stuff, we are not The Brady Bunch.

So what CAN you do to help your grieving friends?
Tough question because grief takes us all so differently.

But for me…and by now, I have had some feedback…

I still love the American family picture cards- Adam not so much.
I am happy to be included - we can decide if we want to look at them or just chuck them.

Be careful with your salutations…
NEVER EVER EVER WRITE OUR THREE NAMES WITHOUT LUKE’S!!
IT IS TOO SOON!
AND IT ALWAYS WILL BE!
IT IS AGONY TO SEE!

Maybe try:
Wishing you all...
Wishing you guys...
Dear Scotts
The Scott Family
or leave the salutations off altogether

For the brave (and we’ve had some ..and they make me smile, feel loved and validated in my deep grief)
Dear Sheila, Adam, Luke & George

And sometimes the very brave have customized the whole thing by unceremoniously striking through the inappropriate adjectives leaving:
Christmas
Wishing you a New Year ... and sometimes lukelove gets inserted.
(I am his Mum so I think everyone deserves a lukelove New Year.)

I met a widower recently who recalled trawling through his condolence cards when suddenly he opened one to be met, in place of any text, a photo of a waving bear. He laughed out loud. That’s genius!

Above all :
Don’t write shit you have put no thought into.
Fuck protocol. Emily Post and Debrett’s offer us nothing here.
The dead-kid thing comes with a highly tuned bullshit detector.
Take Care - No! YOU take care in what you write
Thinking of you - well that’s nice - try calling me!
Have a good one - Oh fuck off!

..... you get the picture. And yes, I speak out loud to my Holiday cards.

So, as I sit here sad and in pain, missing not only my boy but also my former joy, my former self, knee-deep in these cards which remind me of what I am supposed to feel, what, in some distant echo, I know I used to feel, and of what I will never feel again.

I keep the brave ones for the love they exude.
I chuck the rest.