As my daughter, mom and I were driving home from Thanksgiving dinner, we saw a big, over-the-top Christmas light display and we all immediately remarked how Fred would have loved it. He adored the happiness around the holidays and especially liked decorating our home and ranch for them. The conversation in the car made me well up with tears, remembering so many times we shopped for, built and put up his decorations.
In those unexpected moments of missing him so intensely, it’s hard to remember that it’s been more than four years, because it sometimes feels very fresh and painful.
Back in 2018, a Winnie the Pooh live action movie about Christopher Robin came out. (Here’s your spoiler alert if you never saw it and don’t want to the movie’s plot disclosed for you now.) It was a sweet, if very poignant film. Fred, Patrice and I saw it together and all of us found ourselves crying at various times during the movie. We came home and told Fred’s mom all about it. By then, her mobility problems made it impossible for her to join us at the theater, but she was still keen to hear all about the movie, since we’d all been looking forward to seeing it. We loved it; but, agreed it was a sad story in some ways. At the time, Fred said it made him think of his dad and reminded him that Les was always with him.
In the movie, we saw Christopher Robin growing up and having to leave his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood for boarding school and adulthood. Over time, Christopher Robin became a working class grown-up, made even more serious by his service in WWII. With that progression, he gradually misplaced his deepest joy for life. It took a very unexpected visit from his old friends from childhood and subsequent trip to take them home for him to remember what was most important in life and what made him genuinely happy.
Sometimes, taking walks down memory lane, especially with who and what we love most in life, isn’t a comfortable stroll; instead, it can be painful. That’s how I felt seeing the Christmas light display and remembering how Fred would have loved it , the experience instantly hurt and burned right to my core. I ended up waking early the next morning in tears again. Sometimes, as hard as we try to move past pain and grief and into gratitude, we just have to let ourselves feel unexpected bouts of pain, because burying it, just prolongs the grief.
The Christopher Robin movie keeps coming to mind. In it, Christopher resolves his adult problems by reconnecting to his deepest joys and truths from childhood; but, just like at the beginning of the film when he has to leave his friends for adulthood, he has to do the same at the end. He has to leave them again. There’s a melancholy to the moment that sure hits home.
Even after all the time that has passed and the hard work I’ve done, there are moments when being without Fred still reduces me to tears, and hurts like it is a brand new pain. It’s more than a dull feeling of melancholy, it’s real and can be intense. I have to believe that is because; at times, being without him will always be new and painful. For as long as I live, I’ll have experiences that some part of me will believe we should have had together and I’ll feel the pain of his loss anew.
Losing someone we love is one of life’s most difficult events. It challenges us in new and painful ways everyday. Most of you know that I lead Griefshare groups at the United Methodist Church in Winnemucca. We will be starting a new series of classes early in the new year. If you have lost a loved one to death and you are grieving, I heartily encourage you to join us for Griefshare. It is an incredible program designed to lead you through the grief process and productively process your pain with hope.
If you would like to learn more about Griefshare and/or sign up for our new year classes, please feel free to give me a call anytime. Kris Stewart (775) 304-9399. We offer the program free of charge and can accommodate both in person and online participation. We generally meet on Thursday evenings for 13 weeks. The lack of a specific start date is because I’m getting close to hip replacement surgery and may need to adjust one or two of our class dates. I should know exactly when that will be by mid December.
Kris Stewart is a rancher in Paradise Valley, Nevada.