January 14th will mark ten years since my daughter, Sky, passed away. Her illness came on suddenly, lasted only a few days, and shocked every person whose life she’d touched.
Exactly one month after her passing, I experienced my first holiday without Sky. It was Valentine’s Day, 2010 and I had no understanding of how I might prepare for a holiday after the loss of someone so beloved to me, even a holiday that I normally thought of as being rather insignificant. I cried in bed. I cried in the bath. Finally, I sat at our kitchen table crying until I made my way outside and walked randomly around Old Town Albuquerque. I kept my head down and tried not to look at holiday decorations or anyone smiling.
Up until that year, Valentine’s Day had never been especially important to me past my childhood card exchanges. At university, I’d even written a column for our newspaper detailing the history of Valentine’s Day and so, in my mind, dispelling the myth that this holiday should somehow be the ultimate day to express one’s love.
But Sky had changed all of that for me during her short lifetime. Through her, Valentine’s Day had come to mean a day to sweetly celebrate, exchange handmade cards, candies, kisses. She especially liked to dress in pink and red.
Sky treasured the holidays and her joy in preparing for them was contagious. She delighted in creating art, designing cards, baking cookies, knitting scarves, and pressing cloves into tiny tangerines she then gifted to family and friends. I often joked that her patience in making things had skipped a generation.
In that first year of grieving the loss of Sky, I frequently listened to the radio just to give my mind a break from its constant replay of her death. But around each holiday, reminders in the form of commercials and specialty programs broke into my radio airwaves. Mother’s Day was especially painful but even St. Patrick’s Day was surprisingly difficult when I remembered Sky planning carefully the night before what she could wear that was green and pinching me playfully in the morning if I’d forgotten.
The first year of holidays and celebrations after Sky’s passing was definitely the toughest for me. I couldn’t help but look back at where I had been the year before—inevitably with Sky—and I didn’t know how or where to be without her. She had been my only child and, though I was lucky to have two amazing stepdaughters, an incredible nephew, Sky’s friends, and my own beautiful friends and family in my life, it was as though we were all free-falling together—with me falling the hardest and the fastest. People looked to me for answers on how to be, what to do, how to act, what to say. I understand now that this was a show of respect as others acknowledged my loss to be the greatest. But ten years ago, I had no idea what to do or how to be. Ten years ago, I wasn’t an expert at grieving.
But if I accept this gift of time, this decade I have lived since my daughter’s passing, I realize that even though we are, each of us, alone, we also have more shared experiences than we realize. We are all born into this world and we all die and leave this world. Some of us live very short lives and some of us live to be very old. But we all die. So why don’t we have more conversations about this inevitable outcome? Why don’t we bond through tragedy and pain rather than often avoiding it and the people who’ve been hit the hardest? Can we change this outcome one book, one conversation, and one person at a time?
If you are experiencing loss and grief during these holidays, I hope that our book Evan and the Skygoats will help you understand you are not alone with your loss. And that dreams and joy can come back to you after and even during a time of intense grieving.
I also hope that the list of Love Thoughts for Someone Grieving I’ve included at the end of the book will present ideas that might stop your freefall of grief even if only for a few moments.
You might start with my first two points:
1. Be gentle with yourself.
2. Listen to yourself to know what is best for your personal healing.
It’s important to know that what is best for you will be constantly changing and may be different from another person grieving, even if they are grieving a similar loss. Give yourself permission to make plans for the holidays with the understanding that you might need to step away from or even cancel these plans up to the last minute or even during a planned celebration. You may not be an expert at grieving, but you are an expert at being you. Listening to yourself will be the best gift you can give yourself as well as those around you during the holidays.
If you find yourself in the role of supporting someone else’s loss, I hope you’ll read my Love Thoughts for Those Supporting Someone Grieving—also found at the end of our storybook Evan and the Skygoats. Read Point 5 and consider saying, “I love you” or “I’m thinking of you” rather than “Happy Holidays” to a grieving person. Thoughtful communication and gestures go a long way in comforting the child in all of us.
You may also want to consider starting new traditions that let you spend time with those you love without forcing past patterns. You might go for a nature walk with thermoses filled with hot cocoa or tea instead of sitting down to share a traditional meal. You might write a beloved’s name in the sand or spell it out with pebbles in the snow. You might search for heart rocks or build an altar for your beloved. Look for activities that feed your soul and comfort your heart in this new now of you.
Last week, Sky’s dear friend Sofia stopped by and brought me three extremely thoughtful belated birthday gifts. The first was a heart rock painted with the night sky as in Evan and the Skygoats. The second was a photo book of heart rocks because, as Sofia said, “You find hearts everywhere.” Here’s a piece of foil in the shape of a heart I came across in the Cutbow Coffee parking lot a few days ago. Sofia is right. It’s crazy how many hearts like this one literally cross my path each day.
And the third gift was a cookie cutter in the shape of a goat.
If you’ve read Evan and the Skygoats or any of my Journal posts, you’ll know that my own personal healing started on a goat farm with sweet and silly goats, so you’ll understand what an especially thoughtful gift this cookie cutter was.
A few days ago, with my goat cookie cutter in hand, I joined my mom and my son (the real Evan born to me three years after Sky’s passing), in baking cookies. We were very silly, cutting goats and adding cranberries and blueberries for eyes. My mom pulled out her star and heart-shaped cutters and Evan even invented something he called a “blueberry roll”—which was basically just a blueberry rolled in cookie dough but incredibly tasty and our favorite of the day.
My nephew, Nathan, was working on updating our computers in the living room and wandered into the kitchen and joined in our cookie making. Evan’s grandfather came in for the tasting and a new version of an old tradition was born.
And so, in the midst of these winter holidays, I wish for all of us peace and love.
And I send to each of you…
Skykisses forever.
V.