Messy Sentimental Monday

My dad died just a few weeks after I turned 18. He had been sick for three years - kidney cancer. The six months had been the worst. That previous Christmas morning, I nearly wrecked my car on black ice on my way to the hospital to see him. I spun into an on ramp on the local highway. Somehow, the roads were completely empty and my car unharmed, but I've never forgotten how it felt sitting there in a lane I shouldn't be in, realizing the close call I had.

My dad was in the hospital he had run for fifteen years, but this time, he was a patient. A ghost of the man who had once walked the halls.

Growing up, my dad would leave work a few hours early on Christmas Eve, picking up a pizza on the way home. We'd eat a quick dinner and then load the car up with cookie baskets and drive back to the hospital. It was something his father had done when he was a medical director and my dad had continued the tradition. We'd pile the baskets onto one of those mail carts and then head to each of the units and drop off our goodies to the staff working overnight.

It was one of my favorite things. Just me and my dad. He genuinely loved seeing the staff on those deliveries. The holidays were never my favorite, with the exception of moments like this. Once my dad died, I lost all joy for the season.

It would be almost 15 years before I'd put a tree up or decorate. For a few years, I went all out, attempting to create my own new traditions, but that failed to fill the void as well.

This year, I decided to focus a bit more on the grief itself.

"Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim." ~Vicki Harrison

This quote is one that most in stages of grieving know well. However, the waves may have some elements of predictability to them. A recent article out of the UK touched on the idea grief intrusion, where unavoidable dates like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays caused grief to reemerge. (Scott M, Quinn S, Chambers S. Growing around grief: the lived experience of parentally-bereaved young people in the UK. Mortality (Abingdon). Published online March 21, 2025. doi:10.1080/13576275.2025.2481279). For others, they used these recurring dates to reorient to things like defining roles and relationships.

It allowed me to reflex on how much has changed over the almost 23 years since my dad's death. Through each of the seasons, the intrusion is evident, but so is the ability to reorient in real time to current needs.

As a part of this thinking is the reinforcement that there is no right way to grieve.

"Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape." ~CS Lewis

So as we head to the tail end of this holiday season, through the shortest day of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere, I hope that we all remember that there is truly not right way to grieve. That we are constantly evolving and therefore our connections to our past and present are always shifting too. As things change, there will be fear and joy, new experiences, new memories to make and old memories to treasure.

Take a minute, a moment or however long you need. It's ok to be a little messy this time of year.