This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Treasures and Tears

Over the years I have had a lot to be thankful for, but also a lot to be sad about. I only ask that you think of others that have pain in their hearts this Season.

The holidays, and I do mean all of them, whether it is birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving or Christmas, are times when everyone reflects back over their years and lives.

Many people go into them full of joy and happiness, while others — some of whom I know — are going into their first set of holidays with the loss of someone near and dear to them. To them, the air does not seem so crisp, the leaves aren't quite so bright and the enthusiastic Christmas music ringing out just makes them want to bury their heads.

I can remember the first Christmas that we had without my dad. I was 11 by then. I don't quite know how my mom got through it. Smiling one minute when someone was watching, then letting it slide into a lonely frown the next. Through the heartache we found joy as kids. It is hard not to feel the carefree love of family around you. They take the time to give you extra hugs and they try to act normal around you, when really they themselves are struggling to know what to do. We got a trampoline that year, my sisters and I, and we loved it. We jumped and shouted for joy, true joy.

Find out what's happening in Barrowwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

It seams that ever since that year someone whom I care about has died every year. Death is an old friend to me, a comfortable doorway decorated and familiar. It is what I know. It seems to be what I have always known.

Three years ago that door opened to my nephew. He was just a baby, no breath ever taken, no life ever lived. My family gathered just days before Thanksgiving in front of a tiny casket. On days like that you want to kick the door. Bang on it with all your might. But my sister sat with her husband and their little girl who did everything she could to comfort her mom, and I sat with my two boys holding them tight feeling them breathe.

Find out what's happening in Barrowwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

My uncle said it best that day, "If you think this was just a mistake, then when do you think God lost control?" It puts even more meaning into the fact that God gives and God takes away. What we have is His, given by Him to us to watch over. How long we have those blessings is not for us to know, so we do all we can with what we were given.

I am glad that door marked by death does not open when I bang on it. My dad has been gone for 19 years now, and in those years I have had boyfriends and breakups, proms and a graduation, a wedding and some babies, and as much as I would have loved to have him here I realized a long time ago that he is not missing anything, for what we count as amazing here cannot compare at all to what he has been experiencing in Heaven. How unfair would it be to drag anyone back here after even a second there? That is what makes death's door so non-scary to me. That is why I don't mind that it is always there.

Don't get me wrong in this, my heart does still ache for the father that is not there, it is just that over the years it has become a dull throb that is a constant reminder that I was deeply loved and I loved in return. But I would ask that this Christmas season you think about those that are just entering this lonely road and try to think of what you can do for them. Most of the time it is the husband that puts up the lights outside, so maybe a family needs help doing that. The wife was the one who always baked the pies or bread, so maybe you can do that for them. And if it was a child, well, then they just need to feel love, and know that their child that is gone is not forgotten by those around them.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Barrow