New year’s eve doesn’t bring me excitement or even hope for the upcoming year, at least not like it used to.  It’s not that I don’t have anything to look forward to, but it’s that I am one more year further from having my babies with me.  I never understood grief to be this way.  I had always heard that “time heals all” and it makes me cringe.  I don’t believe this. I think it’s what someone with good intentions says when they don’t know what to say.  I’m going into my fourth year of grief and I can tell you for certain that grief, trauma, and losing the lives that you love so deeply has not been healed. Walking into a new year doesn’t end the grief.

A little story

When I was a naïve 15 year old teen, my grandmother had passed away.  We were close. I admired her.  Her death was unexpected and it was the first time that I had anyone close to me die.  A month later, brought New Year’s eve 1998, moving into 1999.  My extended family always got together over the holidays.  We always had too much food, the parents usually had too much “fun” and it was a time to have a fun sleepover with my cousins. 

So that year, we went to my grandfather’s home (today he is almost 97!) and I remember when it was close to midnight, we all congregated into the den to ring in the new year.  I was excited, “A new year means a new start”.  Then I noticed that my aunt was crying.  She left the room.  Being the empath that I was, I was concerned but mostly confused.  So I asked my mom why she was crying.  My mom (who is very wise), explained that she is moving into the new year and it’s the first time she is going without her mother.

That hit me like a ton of bricks.  I felt so stupid to not understand what that had meant. A new year doesn’t mean a new start. Grief doesn’t end when a new year begins.

So in further New Years, I was very cognizant of this and it always brought me back to that memory.

“…Then I got it”

I never fully grasped that feeling until the New Year’s 3 months after my babies died. Then, I really got it.  I feel like I understand what my aunt could have been going through it. Maybe it wasn’t the same, maybe it was similar, maybe she was in a whole different place than me.  But I was in it, I was so deep in my grief that it was consuming my all-being and going into a new year was not going to change that.

I remember that we had all gathered at my parents’ house.  My son had not had time to process the grief that a 5-year-old could acted out at the dinner table.  My brother-in-law scolded my son, embarrassed him, embarrassed me, and I and I completely lost it.  I couldn’t come back from that moment to enjoy myself.  It pushed my emotions to places I didn’t know existed. So when we were close to midnight, physically nauseated, I excused myself. I was in the washroom, hyperventilating while crying a deep sorrowful cry. Unsure how I had made it these past few months and unsure how I could make it another year.

My attempts to help people understand my regret for the years past and the creation of anxiety for the future remains difficult to explain and perhaps difficult to understand.  Until, perhaps, it’s a lived experience.

Sometimes other grieving mother’s say what you can’t…

Without having the right words, I came across this quote from another grieving mother:

“Some people may not understand why those grieving are reluctant to move into a new year.  For them, they see a fresh year, a new season…but for the bereaved, it’s moving into a new calendar year which their loved one will never reside in.”  Zoe Clark-Coates

In the years ahead…

Can following years bring joy and excitement?  I think so.  Can you find happiness after a part of you dies?  I still think so.  Can you still grieve and miss the future that you could have had?  This is it….YES!

If you are reading this and you are the bereaved, I hope you feel understood. If you are reading this and you know someone who is grieving, I hope to bring you some understanding.

As much as we as bereaved mothers and parents want to look at the new year as a new start, we sadly recognize that a new year doesn’t end our grief.

So even though time does not heal all wounds, time just might make the sorrow slightly more bearable.

I wish you peace in your journey. I wish you love in 2021 <3