Last year during our annual poetry slam that we have to celebrate Evan's love of poetry, we had a time of just hanging out in our family room. Not much about our family room had changed since Evan and Alex would hang out with their friend here back in the day. We chatted a bit about how we wanted to change things a bit and possibly get some new furniture and change the room's configuration. For me, this was a tough change, and even to talk about it welled up feelings that made me weepy.
As a grieving parent, it's impossible to explain the impact changes like this make. I feel like changes like this bring about the thought that if it changes, Evan won't be here anymore. Like somehow, the position of furniture holds his presence. It is probably why Evan's room is still in the same condition as the day he left for class, never to be occupied by him again. It was comforting for me to know that one of Evan's friends felt the same about changing the room, and although I know it was for different reasons, it was very similar to how I was feeling. That evening that same friend mentioned that his feet were cold or something like that, and I remembered something that helped me heal a deep yearning.
It was always part of the fun of the season for me to get the stocking stuffers every Christmas. I start looking for stuff early on and put stuff away that I later forget where I put them, and that's a story of its own, lol. So the Christmas that Evan passed away, I had purchased slippers for everyone that I put away. We didn't spend Christmas at home that year, so I forgot that they were hidden. Fast forward to 2019, and I found the slippers while searching for some other things in my closet. It was a hard find—a treasure but yet such a feeling of deep sorrow and sadness. I couldn't take them back as so much time had passed. So as we sat in my family room talking about changes to that room and the difficulty of those changes, I remembered the slippers. So when Evan’s friend said his feet were cold, I thought this is the best possible way to give something meaningful and it was satisfying a real need. So the slippers found a home, and my heart rested, knowing that I was giving them to one of Evan's friends.
The holidays are tough. Oh, they are happy too, but so much expectation we place on ourselves, and sometimes we just have to lean in and let the emotions fall as they will. It's hard to tell people just how much life changes when you suffer such a great loss as this, but you never truly understand until you suffer it yourself. I often feel melancholy for the sweet days of old. They weren't perfect, but they are days where Evan was here, and my parents were younger and alive, and life was full. My heartaches for those days.
