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Holidays, Birthdays and Anniversaries
Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we especially miss her during those times when it’s painfully clear that she’s not here. -Mother Every year on her birthday we sing “Happy birthday” and we release balloons off of our back deck. This year it will be three balloons because she would have been three in December. My husband and I joke that when she’s fifteen we’re going to be standing out here with fifteen balloons singing “Happy birthday” The neighbors are going to think we’re nuts. -Mother We bring toys to Children's Hospital for children on her birthday. -Mother On her birthday and Christmas we send out cards and encourage people to do things in our daughter’s memory. For me, it serves two purposes. One purpose is to do things in her memory and to have our family contribute. In another sense it’s to say, “Hey, don’t forget.” -Mother We recognize her birthday and the anniversary of her death every year with little rituals. We talk about her a lot. We encourage and welcome people talking about her with us. We have a foundation on behalf of her and her cousin who died of the same disease, which we work on regularly. -Mother We have a birthday party for her every year and make a donation to the CHB Trust directed to a fund that supports research for a cure of her disease. -Mother We do a fundraiser for her on her birthday every year as a way to not be sad on her birthday. It was a way for us to celebrate her and celebrate her on her birthday. We would get together, visit the grave, play a favorite song of hers, and go through photographs. -Mother It’s Paulina’s anniversary on the 12th of November, and I’m actually beginning to relax a little bit. About a month after Paulina passed, it really hit. We moved to Canada, where we were planning to move with Paulina. The reality of the whole situation sunk in. It was Christmas; it was the 22nd of December. It was awful. It was snowing. It was icy. It was cold. That was the coldest, darkest, loneliest, bleakest, awful, hideous time of my entire life. -Mother The anticipatory energy of any anniversary or date is actually worse than the actual date itself because you’re gearing yourself up for it. For our daughter’s anniversary this year, we plan to celebrate her as we did her birthday as well. We try, and it’s not easy. This is probably a testament just to the relationship and the kind of persons that my husband and I are. We really tried to focus on the nice bits, and remember the good bits. We cheered to our daughter and we had a glass of wine and got some flowers. Just little things so that we can say hello to her. -Mother My Grief Comes Out of the Blue A lot of my grief times are just out of the blue. I’ll see something that will remind me of Libby. For example, we bought a new car which we had talked about purchasing when we had Libby but we just never got around to it. When we did purchase the bigger vehicle, I felt like she should have been here for that purchase. Out of the blue I was driving this new car thinking that Libby should be in this car. Those types of things, the purchases of anything new or a celebration for us where she isn’t physically with us is hard. -Mother |
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Hospital Boston Department of Psychiatry. All Rights Reserved. The information on this website should not be taken as medical advice, which can only be given to you by your personal health care professional. Updated: May 22, 2008 |
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