On Grief and Parent Loss and Holidays: Missing the Special and the Mundane

There is a hole in my heart the shape of my mom, and it flares when I do holiday errands and wish she were riding next to me, snacking on fries and drinking a coke.

It stings when I think of how she loved making solstice cards every year, and how we’d spend Christmas Eve together eating special foods by candlelight, exchanging clever and thoughtful gifts we were so proud of finding for the other.

The last December she was alive, I was living in India. I found myself unexpectedly homesick for twinkle lights and snowy walks in her neighborhood and the elaborate and incredible cookies she’d bake. I had Christmas tea under a lemon tree with people I loved, and the grief of being away from home and away from her sat beside me the whole time.

I miss being known in the way she knew me. I miss the things we did together, and how loved they made me feel. I miss being someone’s kid, HER kid, I guess, even as I parent my own.

Anyway, if you’re missing someone and your heart hurts, or you miss being known by them and doing special or mundane things with them, I see you. It sucks. It really does. May we return our grief to the earth to be transmuted and recycled into love.