For those of us who have someone we love missing at our tables this Christmas.
This is the second Christmas since my mum passed away and to be honest, I have deliberately decided to be in avoidance mode and do something completely out of the ordinary and jet off to Dubai with my dad and spend some time with my friends over here.
Facing the first Christmas without my mum last year was nothing short of excruciating although it was somewhat balanced out with the most incredible last gift my mum gave to us.
Let me go back a little, after my mum passed in September 21, we began to do some digging and join all the dots together of the hints she gave along the way that none of us noticed at the time, quickly discovering that my mum knew from about May that she didn’t have long left to live due to multiple heart issues putting her heart into failure. My mum being the incredible woman that she was, thought about everything possible to make our lives easier without her here, from planning her own funeral, choosing all the songs, scriptures and poems she wanted, who she wanted doing what and even left specific instructions for me to make sure her make up is done! So, when my gran mentioned that before my mum died, she came round and put meat in her freezer for Christmas we all thought there is no way she could have thought that far ahead! But she did.
My mums last incredible act of self-lessness and love was getting duck which is our favourite Christmas meat, seasoning it and putting it in my Grans freezer. She knew we could possibly face Christmas without her so she prepared the duck so we could feel the tangible comfort of her food as a gift to us that first Christmas without her. I just recall standing there and thinking "this woman!" she just left me speechless with her organisation and thought for us all despite what she must have been thinking, feeling and going through knowing her time here with us was coming to an end.
I remember the anticipation of cooking what we called "mums last supper" and the moment the oven beeped and the duck was ready and we lifted the foil watching the steam escape slowly floating away from our faces, it felt like time had stood still as we all froze in the moment, eyes streaming looking at the last ever meal my mum prepared for us. We smiled with such gratitude through the tears, our hearts bursting with love and admiration through the grief, it was a strangely sacred and treasured moment that none of us thought would hit us this hard.
However, slowly approaching this Christmas felt completely different. Last year we had "mums last supper" to look forward to which made her feel close and apart of Christmas. This year the reality of mum being missing from everything we do, every meal we have, every celebration, every birthday, every milestone has really set in and the only tangible things we now have to hold on to is memories.
The reality is I was forced to learn how to live with and function through sudden loss, one minute I was sat with my mum in the living room watching tv and the next minute she was gone. I wasn’t given a choice, or time to prepare my heart and mind I was thrown right into the depths of grief and day by day sometimes minute by minute, I had to figure out life without the woman who gave me mine.
I realised that although there are so many helpful resources with guidance and advice on how to live with and manage grief no one was an expert on my grief. No one had the relationship I had with my mum, no one saw what I saw through my eyes, no one experienced the trauma the way I did and although many around me grieve this incredible woman I realised all our experiences with grief are uniquely individual to us and the different relationships we had with her or the people we have lost in our lives. We can certainly empathise with each other; we can even go through the same stages in the grief cycle but if truth be told no one knows or could even fully understand exactly how we feel living out the loss of our loved ones apart from us, it is the most intense and loneliest of journeys even when surrounded by the love and support of family and friends.
My mum filled so many gaps in my life that not only was she my Mum, she was my best friend, my shopping partner, decorating partner, cooking partner, my Auntie Carol (I called her this most of the time for fun) she was my Pastor, my Co-P and so much more. There wasn’t a day that went past without us talking and checking up on each other so her absence has left a huge hole not only in my heart but in my day-to-day life.
This Christmas I knew it would be unbearable for me to sit round the table and not see her there, to be in the kitchen and not have my tag team partner who I’ve been washing and seasoning meat with from as far back as I can remember, to not hearing her slippers slap the floor as she wanders in and out the dining room, or hearing her high-pitched screech as she gives my brother 6 love in dominoes that we played every year! I just knew my heart wasn’t ready to face that yet.
Now I know grief has a way of showing up where ever you go, so me being miles away from my home in London doesn’t stop the weight of grief resting on me but being in a different environment has helped to give my mind the space it needs to process without the triggers of familiar surroundings.
I have had to find ways of leading grief and not allowing grief to lead me.
I have had to teach myself how to be gracious with me, how to relax on the expectations I had on myself, how to enjoy life and moments even if its temporary and most of all how to be okay with not being okay. I have had to learn how to balance being grateful for life and those I have around me along with the overwhelming sadness of missing my mum.
So, this Christmas as we reflect on the memories of our friends and family who have passed on, I know words will never do justice in fully expressing this hurt but I do know the comfort of someone taking the time to recognise and acknowledge that this isn’t a merry time for us all can help us to feel seen and remembered.
Grief is difficult on the best of days and during holiday seasons it amplifies but, in this time, I am reminded and somewhat comforted by the fact that
“Grief is my expression of love and love is what drives my grief”.
I have learned not to deny my love (grief) but to find ways of just letting it be, acknowledging its presence in various moments but not allowing it to take over. I know myself well enough now to know that staying at home this Christmas would have invited grief to overwhelm me during this time but going away has enabled me to have the space and time to sit with my grief process it and let it be.
We are all on this journey trying to figure out day by day how life even continues on without our loved ones and even though I haven’t walked a day in your shoes and you haven’t walked a day in mine we are united in the fact that we have someone we love missing from our tables this Christmas.
We will forever miss them, we will forever cherish their memories and the roles they played in our lives, we will forever remember and feel the pain of their absence and although for many of us life stopped when our loved ones passed away my prayer and best wishes for us all this Christmas is that we don’t just survive life after loss but we learn how to live life after loss.
To Mum and Ashley one of my closest friends, I love and miss you both, Rest in his Eternal Peace.
With love Chaz'ara x
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