When my brother Dennis Gingerich (pastor, blogger and photographer  http://Gingerich PhotoArt ) set up my website he suggested I post a blog on a scheduled basis.  Even though my heart is not in to writing a blog this week I will go through the motions and write this.  It’s also been requested that I video another “putting up the Christmas tree with the grand daughters while we sing Christmas carol’s” and again post it on Facebook.   Time will tell if I follow through with that request.

This is the first Christmas in 58 years where I’ve felt such sadness.  Last year had its times  of trepidation, but I had that wonderful, glorious buffer of shock along with some Dr prescribed medication to help me through the first year of loss.  Last year I also had that wonderful sense of feeling Loren’s presence in the house.  The 1^st Christmas certainly bore heavy sorrow but I’m finding this Holiday season is far more difficult.  How dare I wish I had the buffer of shock this year?  I also don’t wish the help of more medication because I’m healthily plodding through the process….

At 20 ½ months out there is no form of denial in me.  There is no form of disbelief.  I know he is gone and never coming back. There simply remains this deadening, looming, hollowness…as far as that part of the Christmas experience that Loren & I celebrated with each other.  Whether a married couple is aware of this or not, they have their rituals. They have their patterns.  They have their special attentions that they give each other on Holidays.  My children nor any other person can ever replace what my husband and I had, what we shared on Holidays.  We had shared 37 Christmas seasons together.  Very, very  happy seasons for us.

 But, for the sake of making sure my children and I share our improvised level of happiness and continued life together as a family, we WILL gather for Christmas in the log home.  For the sake of making sure the grand children have a happy Christmas, they WILL open gifts at my house.  For the sake of making sure some traditions are carried forward, the grand daughters and I WILL bake Christmas cookies tomorrow.  For the sake of making sure some traditions are carried forward, the grand daughters WILL decorate the Christmas tree tomorrow (…now, this years tree is a fake tree ~  not a tree that Loren & I cut down from the property. He refused to have a fake tree since we lived in a log house,  however this year I  had to resign that tradition….there are some things I can’t do by myself).

“So, God.  This is all so new to me.  I feel like I’m a sniveling brat when I voice the sorrow.  When I am honest in my writing.  Help me walk the path of being honest and transparent all the while embracing God’s goodness in my life as it is now.  God’s goodness towards me and in me.  Amen.”