Holidays...Love'em & Hate'em

The Holidays can be an amazing time of year. Time off from work, good food, company of Family & Friends. Homes filled with Love, Laughter and sheer Joy from the time of year.

For many however, it can be an extremely difficult time of year. Memories of loved ones lost, struggles with money and countless other potential issues that for many, can take its toll and make the Holidays feel long & heavy.

Coming from someone who has lost loved ones (Like most of us), it definitely can be a struggle some days finding the peace in the holidays.

However, I've discovered a few things (again, all my personal opinion). I've recognized that gifts, and the season don't really mean what they use to when I was younger. I find myself just wanting to spend time with the people important to me in my life and trying to soak it all in. Before I diver deeper into what I personally appreciate and focus on, let me go back a bit.

When my mom passed away from her battle with cancer in January of 2014 everything was a bit of a blur for me. And I'm not talking for a day or even a week. Actually the blur started back in September/October of 2013 when my wife & I relocated our family (Tiff, daughter Olivia, Lexi our dog & Peanut our cat). We moved to Buffalo to the headquarters of the company I was working for. They made me an offer for an opportunity to grow my career and our financial situation and we both decided to not look back 30 years from now and say what if. That said, I knew that when we moved I very well might not be around should my mom take a turn for the worse. Fast forward to Thanksgiving. My mom started to go in and out of the hospital. She was briefly home but couldn't go to any family gatherings (anyone who has gone through this with a loved one, you know their immune systems are basically none existent so gatherings are LOW on the totem poll. Catch is, people need people and it can make for a very lonely time for these individuals during the holidays). We were home for a few days and drove back to Buffalo only to drive back home to New Hampshire a few weeks later for the Christmas break time. By this time she had been in and out of the hospital and/or a Rehabilitation center multiple times and a few of us knew what was happening. A few days before New Years Tiff & I made the difficult decision to leave early as we weren't able to really spend much quality time do to my moms failing health and were more in the way than anything and also knew we didn't want to be driving back 8+ hours to Buffalo in a pending snow storm that was on its way.

The morning we were going to be leaving my mom also had to leave. My Dad & Aunt were taking her to a doctors appointment, what would turn out to be one of the final few. When they were wheeling her out of the house we made eye contact and said our "I love you's" from afar yet I felt this one was different. I can't explain it, call it a mother/son bond but I knew that I had just said I love you to my mom for a final time. An hour later, Olivia was up and we were on the road. I cried briefly holding Tiff's hand while I drove us "home" as she encouraged me that she'd get through it.

As much as I appreciate my beautiful wife and her strength, I knew what this good bye meant. I know, why would I think that? Well, when I was 12, I watched her dad go through his own battle with cancer for 3 months (was given 6) and we knew his last breath was coming for weeks before it finally happened. Yes I was sad when he passed, yes I cried and still to this day miss him dearly but I remember also being extremely relieved as well that he was no longer suffering. That he finally would be free and in a better place (a lot for a 12 year old boy to wrap his head around).

And as much as all of that seemed true this time around, I found myself wanting to see my mom again. I didn't really register the idea as I thought I had and when I got the call on the early morning of January 7th the daze state began. I spoke with my father on the phone, briefly.

It was around 6:15am when I got the call, I had been awake since 6am. For some reason I woke up, wide awake. Stared at my phone, knowing that it was going to ring.

When I answered I immediately recognized my dad before he identified himself. "Hi. We lost mom this morning. She passed about 15 minutes ago." We discussed a couple brief things, details about services and mostly unknown details at the time and then quickly got off the phone both of us assuming that we each needed a moment to gather ourselves after the worst phone call we'd ever have with each other.

I was in Florida at a work conference and would be for the next 3 days. I briefly tried to find an earlier flight home but Buffalo was getting belted with a snow storm (shocking) so all the flights were delayed and/or cancelled. So I told my boss and the other upper management that I would stay and finish out the trip through our scheduled flights home at the end of the week. Everyone was amazing and extremely sensitive to my situation. Sometimes, work just isn't that important but sometimes, it helps you keep focused on things that we sometimes just need to focus on. I finally arrived home in Buffalo Thursday afternoon. Worked Friday at the office. Woke up Saturday, cleaned, did laundry and kept Olivia busy while Tiff finished up her journal orders. Packed as much as I could and we headed out Sunday for New Hampshire. The services would be the end of the week so we had time and didn't want to rush anything. We made it back to NH. The week felt like a month. The only thing I really remember were moments of the Wake. My family and friends that were there for us in ways that they'll never fully understand. My cousin Tim (a man who I've looked up to most of my life) showing up from San Diego California to be there for the family, specifically my dad and I. My friends, countless friends. My boys carrying my moms Urn to her final resting place. She wouldn't have had it any other way. Being at the Cemetery and it snowing, large, fluffy flakes (thanks mom). And then we all went back to our lives. 

Although on the outside I was held together both at home and at work, the toll of losing my mom would later come back to bite me. I didn't really start to snap of of that daze until I'd say about April of that year, just in time to learn from my wife that we were expecting our second child sometime the following January...

In the mean time, those blur of 3 months I was cold, heartless and oblivious. I was hard on my Sales team, basically empty at home to both of my beautiful girls at home (Wife Tiff & Olivia) and then I finally snapped out of it over the course of a couple of weeks.

Few reasons, a meeting with one of my Reps and another manager. My daughter clearly getting frustrated with me for not playing with her one night and me finally snapping at Tiff over something (that moment is for us).

From there I recognized what was happening because of something that I have had experience with most of my life.....depression. I immediately snapped myself out of it. I'm lucky enough to be able to do that and have the personal mechanisms to do it. It takes a lot of internal coaching and gut checks. The reality is, this isn't what my mom would want for me, nor my girls and I quickly took that thought and used it to wake myself up.

The point of explaining this is when we find ourselves being judgmental towards others (family/friends) we really need to take a step back and ask ourselves, "I wonder if everything is ok?".

It'll be two years next month (less than 2 weeks as I write this) since my mom passed. Sure, I was more awake and less blurry this holiday but I do find myself missing her deeply. She always made my Birthday (7 days before Christmas....) very special. Even if it was just something between her and I she always made it a special day. It wasn't the gifts, it wasn't the cards, I can't even really explain it except by saying, she had the mothers touch when it came to making her only son feel special. As I write this, I struggle to keep my composure. The difference today, I embrace that there are lessons to be learned every second of every day from the experiences we go through. What WE choose to learn and move forward with is what will make the difference.

For my mom, I choose to live. I choose a different path than hers, one that I've learned was extremely difficult for her at times (depression, cancer and many other things that I'll probably never know). I choose to continually embrace this life, the people I have in it and not let my mind convince myself otherwise.

So this holiday and the many that lay ahead in the future...please try to remember that for some, it is a difficult time. Even if you don't get warm responses in return should you attempt to be there for them, understand that the love shown has more weight behind it than the one that never exists and sometimes that all someone needs to help them move forward and out of the dark holes that they feel they're in.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this Man/Husband/Father's thoughts, feelings and opinions towards Life, Love & loss.

Hope you all have a Safe & Wonderful New Year and an even better year in 2016!