Christmas 2020

This Christmas was so much easier than last year which was literally hell on earth. Last year I was shocked and raw and felt like all my skin had been ripped off. I was literally in bits. Every single part of Christmas preparation sent a stabbing pain through me. My brain kept reflecting back to the year before when Ben came down for Christmas 2018. It went something like this….’this time last year I got one of those for Ben’s stocking’ and ‘last time I heard that song Ben was alive’ and ‘last year I was a Mum’ and ‘Last year I had a son’ and ‘the last time I thought about bread sauce Ben was alive’. Every little tradition involved reflection and a huge pang of loss.

This year it was like the initial impact had been felt. I could look at a Terry’s chocolate orange without being hit by a stream of memories. Like one Christmas morning being woken by the distinctive sound of a chocolate orange being banged on the floor to open it up. I think Ben was about 6. When I went into Ben’s Room he was sitting there surrounded by the chaos of a hurriedly opened Christmas stocking. He said he loved his stocking but really didn’t like the muesli ball that he had taken a big bite out of … it was in fact a fat ball for the birds!

Christmas 2020 has been so different for everyone. Something that blind-sided me was when lots of people on TV, friends and family were really upset that they couldn’t see their family for Christmas this year. It made realise that I have to live my life with this loss not just for a year but for every single day for the rest of my life- not just at Christmas. I felt so isolated that my norm is so far from most other people’s norm. John and I also had a few ‘words’ as he finds relating to my grief difficult. Of course he does. Everyone does. Never in a million years would I expect him or anyone to know what it feels like. Well maybe God does- ironically the only common reference to the intense, enduring grief of loosing your only son is in the Bible!

This year I decided we needed to make some new traditions to make things easier. I still couldn’t face opening the Christmas decoration box so I took the easy way out and bought lots of new ones and asked my family to send me some of theirs. Ironically a couple of days after doing this I then felt able to open the box. It really, really hurt. I’m devastated to say that probably my most precious treasure had not survived storage. I hadn’t opened the box since it was put in storage two years ago when we last moved. Ben had made a ‘pork pie’ decoration at primary school. At the time we lived near Melton Mowbray and as we always have pork pie for Christmas breakfast it was an excellent choice. I loved it. When I saw it was now a mush I felt another pang of loss. But it was tiny in comparison to the loss of Ben so I’ve just got on with it. Things are things. I’ve got the memory.

This year I was able to give Ben a Christmas present. His long board has been a brilliant temporary headstone. However Bunchy who runs the green burial site where Ben’s ashes are buried has been gradually preparing me that it needs to be removed. They only like natural materials in the woodland. My sister Laura who is a stonemason has carved a headstone for Ben. Due to Corona she (and it) are stuck in France….. so I improvised and adapted a bit of left over slate to be a stand in until it arrives. I think Ben would approve! I’ve found being able to visit Ben there so comforting. I take the dogs up there (it was originally a pet/horse cemetery and they now reluctantly let people in!!) and say to them ‘where’s Ben? Find Ben’ and they run off to his plot- where they and us will eventually end up.