The Holiday Season

The holiday season is upon us; people are inviting us to parties and wishing us the best. Indira and I are trying to do a little decorating of the house - not because we're celebrating but because we both think we should. Last year Melodina was in the ICU over Christmas and New Years and on to her death. Both Indira and I lived at the hospital, one sleeping in a chair by her bed while the other curled up with other ICU parents on the benches in the waiting room. This is how we remember the holidays. I don't remember which day was Christmas or New Years, I only remember the minutes, hours and days as we sat our watch, hoping Melodina would recouver, knowing she might die.


Indira tried to go for councelling a couple of months after Melodina died. It was difficult to access at first. The Hospital for Sick Children had given us a package that included grief councelling information. Perfect if you live in Toronto. To us it seemed just cold and unfeeling. They gave us information that was useless to us. It was done with the best intentions of beaurocrats trying to help. Nothing personal. Nothing caring. Just send out the package without thought or feelings and congratulate yourself for doing your job. It hurt.


Eventually friends pointed Indira to a service in Orangeville, only 25 minutes away. She called. A very nice councellor came to the house. It was helping. At least Indira said it was helping and that is the best way to know. Right from the beginning she was told that it was expected that she would got to Orangeville for group councelling sessions soon. After five sessions at home, two a week, the councellor told Indira she couldn't come to the house any more. She couldn't provide individual councelling any more. Indira had to go to the group sessions or not recieve help.


The group sessions proved difficult right from the start. The problem is that when your child dies - even if you have other wonderful children and grandchildren as we do - even if you hold life as a sacred blessing, as we do - you still wonder why you are alive. You don't see any purpose to live and you sometimes wish you were dead. Every parent we know who has lost a child would have died so our children could live, if that were possible.

The group Indira went to was populated, understandably, by suicidal suicidal women. Some had attempted to take their own lives several times. The discussion wasn't around the children and how wonderful they were - it was around possible suicide. Indira was scared. These women were talking about things that were to close to her own emotions; they were talking about killing themselves and it terrified Indira. She came home depressed and angrier than she had been for some time. Indira couldn't talk to me about it. I felt helpless to help with a situation I did not understand. That councelling session, which I had not attended, was hard on both of us. That was the end of councelling.


Back to the holidays. Each day is a reminder that the one who loved giving the most, the one who loved family the most and the one who got the most joy out of others' happiness is not here this year. There is a large gap in what we think of as the holidays. We are trying. We have others in the family who are important. It just can never be the same when your youngest child suffered and died. We are trying to keep the spiritual side of the holidays. The idea of being grateful. We will get through it for the grandchildren but quite frankly I would much rather spent both Christmas and New Years alone meditating and reflecting. So be it.

Please don't tell us you understand because your grandmother had cancer and died. This is totally different. Please don't tell me we have too much attachment. The loss of a child is like the loss of an arm. You may learn to live without it but it is still gone. Please done tell us that time will heal. Like the amputated arm time does not heal. Some things are just like that. Whatever the cause, there is a loss that cannot be replaced and most cannot understand. Let us do the best we can. Support us with your love, not your with understanding, which is inadiquate. Thank you.

Am I bitter, sometimes, but not often. The reality is I am trying to live in a world that is completely new to me, a world where the light is dim and the rewards are few. Still I am grateful for my life and I look to understand life's lessons as they come to whatever extent I can. I sincerely wish everyone a wonderful holiday season. Mostly I wish that each of you can face the pain and suffering that you have and still smile. I know we all suffer. I hope that you can see the beauty of nature and our fellow human beings and enjoy the spirit of love while appreciating the blessings, past and present, in your lives. Whatever your religion, whatever your beliefs, I wish you peace and good will.