- I was estranged from my mother for 11 years before she died.
- Our relationship always gave me feelings of sadness, but they often intensified during the holidays.
- Seeking therapy and embracing my emotions helped me find joy in the midst of the holiday sadness.
Tis the season to be merry, making holiday cookies in the comfort of your cozy kitchen, smelling of pine needles and sipping hot cocoa. But for many people who are estranged from loved ones, myself included, it’s also the season for something a little less fun: grief.
My mother and I were separated for eleven years. I say were because she is no longer earthly, but somewhere out in the ether, depending on who you ask. Of course, with that loss comes its own kind of loss. But before he died in 2019 of a methamphetamine overdose, our departure felt like an eternal sadness, a sadness that can’t be wrapped up in a bow — especially during the holiday season.
The months that mark the end of the year, a supposedly happy change to a new year are, perhaps, the most difficult months when you are away from a loved one, a friend or for many, their entire family. . For me, it certainly was. My mother, the person we are all deeply connected to in ways we can’t always understand, was not around. She always loved Christmas, but Halloween was her favorite, and as our eleven-year estrangement wore on, I found myself a little melancholy as the spooky season approached. It went well in December too.
We missed wrapping presents together, going out to see the holiday lights or even watching silly movies about elves and Santa and those Hallmark movies she loved. And with every holiday lost together, it marked something we could never get back. Time. Memories. Joy. Sadness. Love. This came and went every year.
Finding a way to cope
In the midst of our separation, around the third year, I decided to find ways to cope with the sadness. I didn’t want to stay stuck in this loop. After all, I wanted to enjoy the holidays too. We all deserve this. So I decided to do what I knew would help: I ​​book a therapist, every year, to talk to before the holiday season starts. Even if I didn’t keep the sessions throughout the months, I found that having someone (a trained professional) to make a plan with – like what to do when I feel depression coming on or what I can do to help myself if I got angry messages from my mother – it was a way to protect myself.
I always knew that, during the holidays, each of our feelings would turn sour. I would feel the call to continue to protect myself, and she, a struggling addict, would feel the call to reach out to me and reconnect. I would feel sad if I couldn’t hug her, and she would, it seems, feel sad that she couldn’t hug me too.
I imagined her sitting in her house that I had never seen and never invited before, and I wondered if she thought about me, or what we would do if we were together. Over the years, I realized that instead of pushing these thoughts and feelings away, embracing them actually made things easier. We have to feel all our things, and even if they are difficult, this is the reality of many people who are estranged.
To live a joyful life
Making the decision to get professional help and allow myself to notice and accept how I felt gave me permission to live in duality: I could have complicated emotions and still live my joyful life. Of course, it also helped to confide in trusted friends, indulge in my grandmother’s Christmas cookies, go to the three-story mall with my little sister to buy presents, and give myself days off when I needed them. .
Now, even after my mother passed away, I think the process of grieving her while she was still alive was somehow more difficult than grieving her death. That’s the thing about leaving, it forces us to grieve for a person who is still alive but who, in some way, feels dead. During the holidays, this always leaves me with a sadness that I think will always be there. But me can continue.
A few years before my mother died, I received a card in the mail a week after Christmas. It was sealed on December 24. The address was one of the drug addiction treatment centers she checked into on Christmas Eve, a time when the holidays should have helped her reassess her life. The note simply reads, “Merry Christmas, I love you.” For the first time, I fully knew, she too felt the rigors of the holidays.