December 31st has come and gone ten times since my husband Bob was murdered. While ringing in the New Year with friends, Bob left our dinner table to check on the home of a vacationing neighbor. It had become apparent no responsible adult was overseeing a party the neighbor’s teenaged son was throwing. Bob walked in on two hundred drunk and out of control youth. Within minutes he was dead, beaten to death by two young men angered by his efforts to shut things down. I was left a widow with four-year-old twins.
The first year after Bob’s death was a blur of just getting one foot in front of the other. I focused my energy on putting meals on the table for my children, easing them into the routine of Kindergarten, and crying myself to sleep.
Having the anniversary of Bob’s death fall on a holiday magnified the dread I felt as the first Christmas season approached. I made arrangements to take my children away that first year; something we had never done before. Just the thought of snow, the familiar boxes of decorations, the smell of turkey and one less place set at our table made me want to fall off the edge of the earth.
We spent the holidays on a beach in Mexico. My children were kept busy by the impossibly happy recreation staff while I hid my swollen eyes behind sunglasses and pretended to read a trashy novel. While the rest of the resort gaily counted down the minutes to midnight I pulled the covers over my head and prayed the next year would be easier.
The next year was not any easier, but it was different. I had remarried and my husband Michael had two children of his own. We made a real effort to create new holiday traditions which would honor our freshly blended family. I began a different repertoire of Christmas baking and lay to rest some of Bob’s favorites.
Michael’s daughter is bi-racial. Her beautiful almond shaped eyes and shiny black hair show off her Asian heritage and it was her suggestion to celebrate Chinese New Year. We held off popping the champagne in December and ate duck and oranges in February instead. I still felt myself bracing for the holidays weeks in advance, but the jagged edges were smoothed somewhat by the curiosity of new rituals.
In the years that followed my sadness was more about the realization of how much Bob was missing. Our twins had grown into adolescence and offered reminders of Bob’s character with ever increasing frequency. The arrival of each New Year simply served to remind me of his absence in our world.
I learned to be good to myself as the holidays approached; not over-committing the family socially and building in lots of time and space to look after one another’s hearts. I made a habit of going to bed before the ball dropped.
We endured an additional layer of pressure in the fact our tragic story had been very public. For many years the media would contact us to ask what New Years felt like in the distancing wake of Bob’s murder. No magic number of times turning over the last page of a calendar would make his death any easier to bear.
A few years ago on December 31st, I found our kitchen crowded with an impromptu gathering of friends and family. A close friend’s marriage had just fallen apart and she had brought her children along to get away from her own holiday grief.
I realized that night that life does move forward. It brings with it new circumstances to celebrate, as well as new circumstances to mourn. I was grateful my grief for Bob had shrunk to allow room in my heart to help my friend get through her own loss. Before I knew it, it was midnight; the first time in many years I had seen the New Year in. My arms encircled my friend on one side and Michael on the other. Our children danced with sparklers on the lawn while our tears of joy flowed amidst tears of sadness. Life and death are messy.
Now our twins are in their teens, and New Year’s Eve has become an exciting social event among their peers. They confessed to me a concern I would never let them go out to celebrate. On the contrary, I am grateful for their healthy, normal and very typical teen need to be with their friends. I explained to them they have a lifetime of New Year’s Eves ahead of them. They deserve to look forward to that night with eager anticipation, for it to be special and enjoyed safely in the company of good people. They deserve it to be the start of something wonderful rather that a reminder of a horrible moment in time. Bob would be the first to agree.
Gung Hay Fat Choy!
Tags: grief, hope
