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Heavy heart for holidays... (Double post, also on Holidays)
My MIL passed away from Colon Cancer on March 12th of this year. The Holidays were her favorite as she always went to the extremes with decorating and shopping. She looked forward to getting dressed up and being with family.
With the Holidays drawing near I can't help but think about how this year is going to be different in so many ways. Unfortunately my MIL was not able to see the birth of her first granddaughter (C) on May 9th of this year. C is our little glimmer of happiness through a lot of this. (She is our niece from SIL)
My heart aches for my H, my SIL, and FIL. I miss her too, but obviously no where near what they do.
I guess that gets me to my point. I'm hoping to start a small family tradition (or just an occasion for this year) that might help ease some of the heart ache that will inevitably be felt this year. I'm not really sure what I'm looking at wanting to do, just something that everyone can be involved in.
Thanks ladies!
Re: Heavy heart for holidays... (Double post, also on Holidays)
Are you looking for suggestions? Its not really clear what you are wanting in this post, to be honest.
If you would like a suggestion: You might try all getting together to decorate a little tree in honor of your MIL. You can find the small ones and put ornaments on them. My good friend does a memory tree with Angels. You cut the angels out of white construction paper & then each person writes a memory on an angel to remember your loved one. We do it for pets too (just cut out little cats/dogs with wings!). The little tree stays up as long as the tree stays up.
On xmas eve you can do a memory candle that burns until you are ready to go to sleep (don't want to leave a candle burning unattended). You can light it at dinner (when you are all together) and keep it burning while you watch movies or do whatever you do as a family.
I hope that helps & it is what you were after with this post.
I'm sorry it was confusing. Re-reading it now I can see that.
This is exactly what I was looking for, Thank You!
Were there any traditions which were especially important to her or started by her? I would try to keep one or some of those...for example, my grandmother made Orange rolls for one of the winter holiday breakfasts. I loved those and we made those traditional...after she passed I made sure to keep that going. My daughter makes sure to bake a certain type of cookie my grandmother always made from scratch (and you don't find substitutes in stores). It's not a "new" tradition, but it's a small unglaring part of having grandma still felt without bringing the season into a memorial service type feel.
74 books read in 2011
Sorry for your loss
If the rest of the family is willing, maybe everyone could contribute money or items (canned goods, toys, coats, pet food, etc.) to MIL's favorite charity.
I also like PP's idea of sponsoring a child/family to give them a nice Christmas.
ETA, something I just thought of: I think you have really good intentions, but I would be careful about doing something on behalf of your in-laws. Families may want to remember deceased loved ones in different ways.
Example - My MIL died when MH was 20 and I had a few ideas of how to honor her at our wedding last year, but he said that he preferred to remember her in his own way and not turn our wedding into a memorial service. He's also had some people say/do things to honor his mother for the past 8 years (photos, songs at weddings, etc.) without asking him first, and while he appreciated their intentions he was a bit irritated at the way some things came across (because they weren't things that he, his mom or dad would've really wanted them to be).
And I know that you wouldn't just up and do something without at least running it by someone first, but MH had a few people ask him to do something for his mom and he kind of felt painted into a corner and obliged to say yes even if he would rather say no. So your husband would probably be a good sounding board for any ideas that you might have to honor your MIL, and then he/you can present it to the rest of the family.
Again, I think your idea is very sweet and hopefully you can find something to properly honor and remember your MIL.
My mom was killed in a car accident when I was very young and had 4 siblings.
Thanksgiving was so awful, my dad sat us all down to talk about Christmas.
He said that Christmas would never be the same again so we were going to do it differently now.
He rented a condo in Luquillo, Puerto Rico for the two weeks at Christmas and that, with plane tickets was his gift to us. We all gave him gifts though.
Christmas Eve we went to mass in an open air church in the center of town, after having a fabulous dinner next door at a local seafood place. Turned out that the owner/chef had been a Navy cook when my dad was a Navy fly boy!
We did Christmas there from then on. Even after my dad passed, I took my daughter to St. Croix for Christmas holidays. Somehow, I just couldn't break that tropical Christmas. We celebrated at home, with all family, married with kids after a while on12th Night. Three Kings Day.
Christmas was a day for family and religion, 12th night, (January 6th) was for celebration!
ETA: after two years, he purchased a condo there and used the 2 weeks allowed by the IRS on a rental property for our holiday.
I'm sorry for your loss.
We lost my grandfather to cancer in February, 3 days after my birthday. The year of firsts (first Christmas without them, first family wedding without them, etc) is never easy. My cousin just got married last weekend, and there were several moments throughout the day that hit the heart hard, especially when the photographer asked for the grandparents to join the bride and groom for a picture. In January, a different cousin and his wife are expecting the first great-grandchild to be born since we lost grandpa. That will be especially difficult since we also lost my uncle, who would be the babies grandfather (first grandchild), a few years back.
Like PP said, I would recommend starting new traditions around what the person loved. My grandfather knew how to do "The Twist" like nobody has ever seen. Seriously. He was almost 75, and could get lower in the twist than most 20 year olds I know. So, at my cousin's wedding, we cleared the dance floor (per the bride's request) of anyone who was not related to grandpa (by marriage was okay), and we did "The Twist" in his honor. There was not a dry eye on the dance floor, but mostly it was happy tears.
FET - transferred two embryos (boy and girl) - Nov 2014 - BFP!
Or, if the family is open to it, they can do these things with you! If they're not and DH is not, then quietly let DH know you will be spending a few hours volunteering, and tell him the details he will like. You can grieve in any way that helps you, even if no one else wants to join you. My grandma IL passed away from leukemia, so I looked into being a bone marrow donor, no one else joined me, but that was fine because this was for me and her together.
We have our "grandpa candle." It sits in the living room at my grandma's house and we light it every time we get together. I think that my grandma also lights it when she gets lonely.
Its a quiet reminder of him. It's a normal pillar candle, and we'll probably have to replace it eventually, but it works in that we don't have to make a ceremony of it-- we can each just look up at it and its a reminder that he is watching us.
Thank you for all of your heart felt thoughts and ideas. I love them! I have talked to my H about doing something, even if it's just the 2 of us, in her honor and he loved the idea.
Thank you so much!
Sorry for your loss. I am thinking about this as well as my dad passed away Jan. 31st, only a couple weeks from his 73rd birthday. His birthday happens to be on Valentine's Day, so that was hard. And we got engaged right after that. I was very sad to not be able to share that with him. He said when DH finally proposed to take him straight to the courthouse because he adored him so much.LOL
I definitely missed him on our wedding day. I wore his wedding ring on a ribbon, around my ankle as a something old...like you said, wanting more of a private tribute than making it a memorial service.
My dad wasn't a big holiday person with decorating and stuff, but he sure loved to have family around, and big meals. He also loved singing (was in an oldie band for 30 years) and movies. I haven't been able to bring myself to listen to his recordings yet, but maybe watch one of his favorite movies and eat his favorite lemon meringue pie.