Laying here in my fuzzy Christmas jammies looking at the tv in mom and dad\u2019s bed\u2026 well, just mom\u2019s bed now, I guess\u2026 I turn the volume down low enough so I can still hear everyone out in the living room, but loud enough that no one would suspect me eavesdropping if they came in to check on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve already seen this episode of Matlock, but I doubt I could focus on it even if I hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My mind keeps wandering back to when Christmas was fun and exciting and when everyone was actually happy, not just pretend to be happy, happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can still smell daddy here, on these sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I curl my little body around his pillow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The room taunts me. When I look at his closet, I see him there, smiling back at me, standing in his old brown robe with the tan trim. I look away, only to find him peeking over the swinging saloon style bathroom doors at me with that mischievous grin so full of adoration and love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I close my eyes to escape, but instead I feel his embrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I miss him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I miss him more than I\u2019ve ever missed anything in my entire life. Missing isn\u2019t even the beginning of this empty, hollow, lost feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I open my eyes and his embrace releases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I try to focus on Matlock again, but am distracted by the voices out in the other room. Their forced laughter and compulsive conversations echo down the hallway to me when I hear someone new come in the front door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOh, she\u2019s not feeling well, she\u2019s resting in our bed. I\u2019m sure she\u2019d love to see you, though. Go on back there and say hi.\u201d<\/em>, I hear Mom say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am startled by my own unexpected impulse to leap up and hide in daddy\u2019s closet, when suddenly my big brother appears in the doorway holding a floppy, brown stuffed animal puppy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I smile back at him and am soothed by the solace I find in his kind eyes as he comes to sit next to me on the bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He shares my sadness. I can feel the same \u201cmiss\u201d pouring from his soul. I can tell he sees it in me too, while we sit in the odd comfort of shared misery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As he wraps me in a warm hug, I feel daddy\u2019s embrace return to both of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Relief\u2026 although, fleeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019ve read\u00a0No enemy, but time<\/a>, you already know that my dad passed away the November I turned seven-years-old. A few short weeks later my brothers also were in a\u00a0bad car accident<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That year, I spent Christmas Eve acting like I was sick in my parent\u2019s bed, because I just didn\u2019t have it in me to be around everyone. We were all constantly wearing our brave faces for each other. We all fought back the incessant urge to cry and yell and scream and beg for everything to just go back to normal. We all sustained a forced smile to not only protect each other, but to protect ourselves from being completely consumed by our own broken hearts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was excruciating.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I truly did feel sick from it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Being in their bedroom made me feel as close as I could be to my daddy at that time and that\u2019s all I wanted for Christmas.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing this was surprisingly very difficult for me. I hadn\u2019t realized how heartbroken I truly am for that little girl still. When it was me in that moment, I only really knew my own seven-year-old perspective. I hadn\u2019t yet become a mother or a wife. Now, being that little girl again, equipped with these new perspectives\u2026 I find those feelings incredibly overwhelming. The memory of it is nearly crushing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But, that\u2019s why I do this. That\u2019s why I write. That\u2019s why I share. Because trauma is powerful. Trauma shapes us and molds us and makes us into who we are. Good or bad. And, no matter how hard we work, no matter how much time goes by, no matter how good life can be at any given time\u2026 it doesn\u2019t change the fact that it happened and, to be frank, it never goes away, it just gets different.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s okay. And I\u2019m okay.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I will always wish I could have saved that little girl from all she went through, but the amazing realization I\u2019ve had writing this is that I find immense comfort in letting her know who she\u2019s become.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n She made it. She survived. And she\u2019s found a way to use the darkness to brighten the shine she hopes to shed on others.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Merry everything, sweet girl.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Laying here in my fuzzy Christmas jammies looking at the tv in mom and dad\u2019s bed\u2026 well, just mom\u2019s bed now, I guess\u2026 I turn the volume down low enough so I can still hear everyone out in the living room, but loud enough that no one would suspect me eavesdropping if they came in … Continue reading “merry everything”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afiercemind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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