Dealing with Sadness and Loss During the Holidays

This time of year is full of happiness and hope for many. While others suffer in sadness. Sometimes it is a mix of both as we celebrate what we have now and what we have to look forward to while remembering those we have lost.

28 years ago today I lost my father to leukemia. I was only 4. I never had the chance to really know him. What I remember are nothing more than snapshot like memories freeze framed in my mind. From what I have heard he was a good man. A man that loved me and my mother greatly.

Today I mourn the loss of him, the loss of knowing a great man, the loss of never really having a father, never having the chance to be daddy's girl because even though my mother remarried two other times and I loved those men, they never replaced what I lost.

What I really feel today is sadness for my mom. After 28 years she still misses the love of her life. They were married for over 26 years, 22 before I came along. I was one of those much wanted miracle babies that came late in life, my mother was almost 40 and my father was in his mid 50s.

Last night she told me she was feeling sad. Sad about my dad and sad about the loss of her third husband who passed away in January of this year. It'll be her first Christmas without him. They were together for around 18 years.

I am terrible with grief and emotional stuff. I never know what to say or do. After losing so many people at such a young age I took my grief and placed it on a shelf. Eventually I'll have to dust it off and deal with it but so far I've never learned how. So it sits there. And others around me grieve. I want to help my mom, the only way I know how is to just be there for her and distract her from the sadness that threatens to take over.