As our most recent Compassionate Friends meeting ended and The Friends began to leave, one mom reached toward me with her closed fist extended toward my hand. At first, I thought she was coming in for a hug, but it had been an emotional meeting—holidays are R.O.U.G.H. when you’ve outlived your kid—so a hug seemed full of teary potential. No hug. Instead, a tiny cardinal figurine placed gently in my palm.
A cardinal. A miniature reminder of my Cooper, but an enormous dose of compassion.
When I messaged my compassionate friend to thank her, she said, “I saw it and thought of you. I love itty bitty things!”
Itty bitty, but also not.
In the days that followed, I carried my itty bitty cardinal in my pocket. It was a comfort as I trudged and plodded and limped toward Christmas. And with the cardinal in my pocket and and my friend’s words in my mind, with the seasonal expectations and stress in my face, with the grief/joy casserole in my heart, I tried to focus on the itty bitty, very good things.
That’s tricky. Trickier than it seems. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been able to push through, to shift my focus, to see the good. Not so much, After. Some things are too big, too bad, too devastating for even the most distractible mind to ignore or set aside.
But . . .
Logan and Cassidy were both home for Christmas.
I had hours and hours of wonderful family time.
The weather was freakishly warm the night our family stood in the live nativity. If it had been cold, my recovering-from-covid-and-pneumonia self wouldn’t have been able to participate.
My parents’ currently-preacherless church put together a lovely Christmas Eve service, which meant we spent part of our evening at Hills Grove Church, just as we have nearly every year of all our lives.
I actually did get everything wrapped.
I could finally take a deep breath. Thanks, prednisone.
Nobody really cared that my fondue foray was a flop.
I didn’t screw up any cooking badly enough that people got sick.
I shut off my alarm for two weeks.
I played cards. I played a LOT of cards.
I did most of those things with an itty bitty cardinal in my pocket—a reminder of kindness and compassion, a reminder to look for the bits of our lives that shine, even in the shadow of this tremendous grief.
I suspect a poll of bereaved parents would show that many (most?) of us breathe a bit easier once the weight of the holidays hops off our chests. Sounds awfully Scroogy, but it’s true. I miss Cooper every second of my life, but the missing is so much heavier at the holidays when everyone (but will it ever again seem like everyone?) is together and supposed to be happy, when the house is crowded, (but not crowded enough), when the tables and counters are covered with favorite foods (I’d give anything to hear “This is damn good, Mom.”). Yes, the holidays are rough. As my compassionate cardinal friend said, we “roll with it and try to find the little joys.”
We’ve survived the holidays. Work and school and real life resumed today. Life should return to normal, whatever the hell that means these days. I think I’ll keep my itty bitty cardinal in my pocket a while longer; it reminds me that the itty bitty things—the little joys—are often the best and most important of all.
Woods Writes 