The First Christmas Without A Loved One

We are about seven weeks to Christmas and it’s a time that can be really happy and exciting for most but also very sad and heartbreaking for others. For those who are excited about the Christmas season, the tree and decorations are already up. I met someone last week and they actually told me that all the Christmas presents they want to give to family and friends have already been bought and wrapped. Can you believe that? Christmas presents already wrapped by end of October. I am a planner and I like to think that I have very good organisational skills but I have not yet bought even one Christmas present much more wrapped and ready to be distributed.

For me Christmas preparations really start in December. This was mainly due to Marley. I always wanted to focus on his birthday which is the 3^rd of December before giving all my energy to Christmas. I didnot think it was fair on him to be competing with  Christmas preparations when the rest of us had our birthdays at times of the year when we had no other celebration to compete with. It was only fair that we focused on him and his birthday and afterwards we can start the preparations for Christmas.

Since his passing we have continued with the same pattern. We now focus on the Marley’s 8KM Memory Walk which takes place every first Saturday of December around his birthday. Its our time to focus on his legacy and the difference we are making through Marley’s Aart Foundation. October and November are the time for preparing for this yearly  campaign which every year reaches across countries in different continents highlighting the fact that mental health is global and not just limited to one area, location or country. If you want to know more about Marley and his struggle with mental health then read my book Marley’s Memoir: The Journey to an Irreversible Action and The Aftermath.

We lost Marley by suicide a few weeks before Christmas. We were hit by a double whammy with losing him just a few days after his 18^th birthday and a few weeks before Christmas. We had no time to gather our thoughts and the first Christmas without a loved one was upon us. We had no time to prepare; we were trying to come to terms with the reality that this person who we loved and expected to be here for Christmas was not going to be. Presents had already been bought the person for who they had been bought was no longer with us.

How do we navigate this first Christmas without Marley that we were not prepared for? All the plans I had been making included this person and now he was no longer with us.. Do I still continue with the same plans or do I change them? One thing I was not prepared to do is nothing. Doing nothing would have meant that this traumatic situation had the upper hand. As a Christian I was not going to give in to what the enemy meant to bring me to my knees to succeed as I believe God had the final say. The enemy was not going to have the victory in this situation, I was going to rise up and stand, not by my strength but by the strength that comes from leaning on God.

I can tell you that it was not easy to rise up and stand. Everything in me wanted to just curl up and give up, stay in bed and fall into a deep sleep and let Christmas pass me by and hopefully I would wake up and realise it was just a bad dream. I was not prepared for this. I was prepared for the four of us celebrating Christmas together as we had done in previous years. A bit of argument, a bit of teasing and lots of food and laughter. Here I was with a different reality, a path I had not navigated before and I had to trust God to get me through this unchartered territory.

How did we as a family get through this? Find out in next month’s blog. If you or anyone you know is dreading their first Christmas without a loved one please share this blog with them and they can also get in touch with me.