Every year for as long as I can remember, my dad has pulled out his accordion on Christmas Eve for our family to enjoy.
Sometime about 10 years ago, he even started writing a polka. We always enjoy the Annual Christmas Polka, with new lyrics and polka beat, and my dad historically hands out percussion instruments to all the grandchildren (headcount around 25) for a family-fun, raucous time. We sing and play music and dance the waltz as wide as the room will allow.
This year will be different.
I wouldn’t say that I’m dreading Christmas this year, but I have a pit deep inside that wonders how this year will go.
Last year was our final Christmas with my dad, and we even knew it would be. This time last year my dad was in his last few weeks of battling brain cancer, an almost five-month fight that took our family by storm. Someone recently told me, as I shared the events of the last few months, “Oh, you’re still kind of in shock.”
I don’t know that I entirely agree, except the person I was talking with is a priest, and he probably has a lot of experience dealing with grief and helping others walk through it. I appreciated his candor, and it’s given me a lot to think about, in a season when I feel like I already have so much to think about.
I’m probably still kind of in shock. The polka feels like it will go on as usual.
The holidays can already be so stressful and as a writer and a mama — and a writer who writes a lot about being a mama — I tend to focus on the stress of the Christmas season more within the parameters of busy-ness and all that the season requires of mothers. It’s a lot! In years past, I would focus on the importance of setting realistic expectations for ourselves and having boundaries. How do we want our season to look? What can we do to make that happen?
And here I am staring down an entirely new kind of Christmas season, and I’m amazed to realize this same set of wisdom is needed — from me, for me. However, instead of a focus on the hurried nature of these weeks leading up to Christmas morn, this year I have an awareness of grief and kindness and showing myself love in the midst of facing something really sad — Christmas without my sweet dad.
As a dear friend told me in the early months of my dad’s cancer journey, “Show yourself some grace.”
I’m learning to be comfortable with being sad. And to be comfortable with being happy. Grief feels like an ocean tide, emotions that come and go, not like a storm necessarily (although sometimes really sad feelings come on quite strong). But being okay with not knowing what will feel sad, and what won’t. Many times in the last months I’ve found that the occasions and memories that I thought would be painful were actually filled with joy. And that deep grief often comes in moments you least expect.
As for the polka, my dad worked with my baby brother last year to get one written for us, just a few weeks before he died. We were able to enjoy the polka together at Christmas — the instruments, the singing, the dancing around the room.
And the line that got me, the one I’m already dreading singing but know I’ll feel my dad’s presence so deeply, encourages us to think of him as we sing the words to the song. That he is still with us, as we are gathered together in this joyful time. There is still so much to celebrate.
It is joyful! And sad. There is room for both. Grief, I’m finding, allows them to coexist.
The words of wisdom I would give myself, what I’m gathering from others who have walked this path before, is to accept it all — the sadness and the joy, the highs and lows.
Aside from all this, and the best thing I’ve learned in the midst of this journey, is that the Lord really is faithful.
When I first heard my dad’s diagnosis, when I understood what we were facing, I was afraid that my faith would be challenged. I found myself fearful, afraid that I would feel abandoned by God. Would God become some distant ruler from on high who allowed bad things to happen to good people.
What I found instead, was that God walked beside me — He was there with me and my siblings, with my husband and children, with my mom. God was there in our grief as we said goodbye. He gave us comfort and peace, a peace that really does pass understanding. God put in our path people who could be his hands and feet to show us love and care and we felt loved and cared for every step of the way.
As we enter into this joy-filled season in a new, complicated way, I’ll ask Jesus to continue to provide. Yes, we always ask for resources of time and energy — this season requires plenty of both. And this year, I’ll continue to ask the Lord for resources of comfort and joy.
How beautiful that we have already been told this is exactly what Jesus brings. Jesus offers a comfort and joy that the world could never give. As the angels foretold, it is good news and great joy.
“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah,[a] the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11
