Our first Christmas without Jody
J ody passed away May 5, 1988. I remember that first Christmas season without her, looming large in front of me, wondering what the heck we going to do without her to celebrate one of her favourite times of the year.
As a family, we started to talk about what we could do to include Jody in our Christmas celebrations. We hung special ornaments on the Christmas tree in her honour. We set a place for her at the Christmas table with her photo on the plate. We hung a light on the Hospice Christmas tree in Jody’s name.
We gave food to the local food bank on her behalf. We told Jody stories to remember her. We agreed it was fine to celebrate Christmas as a happy family and be sad that she was not with us.
I decided to wear crazy, colourful socks, one of Jody’s habits, as a way to remember her and have her present in a physical way. To this day, 30 years later, I still wear those crazy socks and remember Jody.
And we talked about it. We didn’t hide behind emotional correctness / politeness and didn’t shy away from chats about our first Christmas without her. And yes, it was emotional; it was a bit of a challenge for each of us, especially for her widowed husband, Roy.
Roy’s family did it differently. They chose not to talk about Jody and just got on with Christmas as they always did. They avoided, as best they could, the awkward elephant in the room — Jody is not with us — and somehow made their way through the Christmas season with barely a mention of her. This was really hard on Roy, and must have been for his family members, too.
The juxtaposition of the way the two families handled the same loss during their first Christmas without Jody was a great lesson for me. Trying to hide the elephant in the room is way harder and more emotionally challenging than addressing the loss of our loved one and talking about how to include them in our first Christmas without them.
For me, facing the loss in an open way, being real and chatting about what we could do and how we could do it — was healing. As we planned our celebration to include Jody, we also were grieving her loss — odd, I thought, that planning our first Christmas without her could be so healing for our sad hearts.
As I approach the 30th Christmas without Jody, I plan to take some food to the local homeless camp on her behalf. Just remembering a late family member in a way that works for me.