Here we go again. Holidays are approaching. The first major one for us is always Halloween. This is for a few reasons. It was the first holiday after my wife’s passing, but it was also during our favorite season. We loved the fall and all of the fall festivities. Apple picking, fairs, and of course, pumpkin seed making. Kim would make Ava’s costume every year. last year I made her the best costume ever. This year we had confusion. First she said she wanted to be a fairy…then it was a unicorn. I said, “How about a unicorn fairy?” and she said OKAY!. Well since then she said she wished she was just a fairy, but hey, I’ve already got this whole thing together, LIGHTS AND ALL!

As we get closer to the holidays, i know the roller coaster will only speed up. I’ve said many times, its not the obvious days that hurt the most, its the mundane random ones. I don’t break down extra hard on Christmas Eve, but I will a few weeks before when I’m wrapping gifts and I think about how I wont get a sweater from her on Christmas eve. I will break down when I’m  buying gluten free ginger bread men from the bakery she used to go to for Ava’s gluten free treats. I still carry Kim’s drivers license in my wallet. When I went to that bakery after she passed, I asked the cashier if she remembered Kim, and showed her the license. That poor cashier. She must’ve been thinking, what the hell is happening here? I just needed to connect with Kim, almost like I wanted to imagine she had just left the bakery 10 minutes before I got there. When I wrote “Traditionally Different” I spoke about trying to honor old traditions and make new ones.  I don’t know. I just know that I always want that feeling, like I just missed her but Ill see her again.

Some of the things we did regularly have slipped. We would watch vids of Kim often but don’t as much. I need to get back into that. Ava’s done good holding onto a lot of our memories. I think it helps that we talk about mom so much. We go to the cemetery together. We even have painted pumpkins to bring this week. One thing I’m happy I didn’t do was bring Ava to the services when we had them. She didn’t need that memory. I wish I didn’t even have it. She is doing so well adjusting. I am not even sure if she knows what the cemetery truly is. I mean, she knows we go to visit mom’s stone, but I don’t know if she knows that’s where we get buried. If she asks, Ill tell her the truth. She hasn’t asked why my name is on the stone. I don’t look forward to that conversation. Sometimes she will ask why I have some gray hair and I tell her it is because I am getting old and she cries saying she does not want me to get old. I tell her I’m always gonna be here with her.

This post below was from my social media in the end of November 2 years ago. It’s always interesting for me to read the changes in what I wrote 2 years ago to today. This is why I think it should be encouraged that those grieving or struggling with a time of their life to take time and journal and write. You will see that even though you do not think it is getting easier, or that you doubt yourself, you can go further than you think and have already gone further than you imagined you had.