Intro:
The holiday season has a way of magnifying everything—joy, love, chaos, and loss. For anyone navigating grief while trying to stay present for the magic of the moment, this time of year can feel like holding fire in one hand and water in the other. This week, I found myself somewhere in the middle—carving out peace where I could, remembering what was, and making space for what still is.
This Week
This week was gentler than most.
After a month away, I’ve settled back into home—reconnecting with friends, finding energy for the little things: Christmas shopping, baking, decorating the tree. I waited for my son to come home before we put it up.
Each night, my husband and I watched the worst Christmas movies we could find. There’s something oddly comforting in them. Maybe because underneath the laughter, we’re both feeling what’s missing—especially at this time of year. Holidays have a way of highlighting the spaces where someone used to be.
Lil loved the holiday music—swaying, grinning, calling out “Santa!” as if she knew exactly what all the joy was about. I read somewhere that one way to honor those we’ve lost is to say their name out loud when ordering coffee. I’ve started doing that. And when the barista calls out “Lily!”—there it is. Her name in the world again. And it makes me smile every time.
Decorating the tree is always emotional. There’s a ritual to it now—pulling out each ornament, unwrapping not just memories, but whole moments in time. Among them: a tiny homemade ornament from Lily’s first Christmas, painted with her baby handprint, edges slightly faded. Just beside it, we hang a delicate angel—one we chose after she passed.
A beginning. An end. A life in between.
The tree tells our whole story — every beginning, every goodbye.
It holds what we still can’t say out loud some days, and yet it stands there, lit and present, year after year. A witness to all of it.
I’m still deeply involved in my daughter’s mental health, even from afar. Maybe too much, some might say. But I don’t care. She doesn’t seem to resent it, and I know she needs it. I need it, too.
Life feels both full and painfully empty. I keep learning that you can hold both things at once—the joy and the ache, the presence and the absence. This strange, beautiful, bittersweet season we call living.
Conclusion:
If you’re feeling pulled in two directions this season—grateful and grieving, busy and hollow—you’re not alone. This is the tension so many of us carry quietly through December. There’s no right way to move through it, only your way.
For me, it’s saying Lily’s name out loud, hanging her ornaments, and loving the people still here as fiercely as I can.
Because the tree tells our whole story — and I’m still writing it, even now.