Welcome to another episode of Keep Grief Weird!
On this episode, we get a little nostalgic for our childhood (80s kids!) and do a mini deep-dive.
Remember Sharon Lois & Bram??
What about KIDS INCORPORATED?
Here’s the theme song if you wanna sing along with Tracy.
What about FAME? “Ya got big dreams? Ya want fame? Well fame costs, and right here <raps cane on floor for emphasis> is where you start paying.”
Look at all the leg warmers.
We discuss our grief and how old it is. Tracy’s grief is a 6-year-old, ready for 1st grade. MC’s grief is 18 and off to college. Have you ever thought about grief that way? It definitely puts the experience into a unique perspective.
Tracy age 6:
Tracy, you look like you’re getting ready to preside over a courtroom!
Here’s MC at 18, laughing on a cordless phone with Handi-Snacks, because what else was there to do in 1999?
I kind of love thinking about what it would be like if my 18-year-old grief could bump into Tracy’s 6-year-old grief. Maybe in the grocery store. I would tell her that’s she’s doing so so great, that I feel like her mother’s soul is shining right through her, and to keep going.
We also talk this week about the ways that we honor our lost loved ones. I (MC) write a letter to my Dad every Christmas. Tracy makes an altar to her Mom on Thanksgiving (that’s Bev’s death anniversary). What do you like to do to honor your lost loved one on an anniversary (death/birthday)?
Tracy’s altar to Bev:
This past year Tracy made a town with all of the Christmas ornaments her Mom saved for her. The weird grief thing is that she wouldn’t have known she had a whole TOWN to stage if Bev was still alive.
I (hi, MC here) talk this week about what it meant to take back Christmas. My dad died on Christmas morning, and so it was both a very big and hard and very easy and natural task to make Christmas a beautiful thing again. There’s that both/and again.
I’m really grateful to still have some of my parent’s old ornaments, and I decorate the tree with them every year. They are really unique and beautiful and I remember as a kid lying underneath the Christmas tree and looking up at the lights bouncing off of the ornaments.
I pepper my own in too, naturally:
It would’ve been easy to hate Christmas. To dread it every year. I do feel grief every year, and I do feel an uptick in anxiety, even 18 years later. Part of this is that the days get so much shorter and the nights so much longer. Those first few years, Christmas felt jagged and awful. The days leading up to Christmas dripped with fear, and the actual day was just something to survive. “Just get through. It’s just a day. Just get through.” But now I don’t dread the season. I love it. Christmas feels like a day to celebrate the joy that my Dad brought to the world. Do I still cry sometimes? Yep. Probably almost every year, but I’m not keeping count because it doesn’t matter. Crying doesn’t mean that I am healing wrong or that I’m not over my grief. It means I’m sad. It means I still miss my Dad. It’s been 18 years but if he hadn’t died, he’d just be 81. It’s kind of eerie that he’s been gone so long but would still seem young.
Anyway. What I want you to know is this: loss need not ruin holidays. If you got divorced near Valentine’s Day, lost a beloved pet on Thanksgiving, or a family member on Christmas you don’t also have to lose the joy of the day. At least not permanently. And listen, there’s no wrong way to do this. If you want to lean into the holiday hate because being Grinchy feels good, go for it. Want to take off to a different country for Thanksgiving so you don’t have to deal with it? By all means. But just know that if you want the holiday back, you can have it. I promise. In fact, I love Christmas so much now that I put my tree up extra early with just lights, and keep it up extra late with just lights.
Want to share your grief stories? Message us here or at keepgriefweird@gmail.com, and tag us @keepgriefweird and use our hashtag- #keepgriefweird on Instagram.
You’ll be able to share your love for your lost loved one there.
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