New Traditions

One year ago this month I embarked on my writing journey and started this blog. I didn’t have any idea what to expect and certainly no wild dreams or aspirations of any kind. I just knew I desperately needed a place to dump my wildly disorganized thoughts and emotions.

     I’ve often explained to those of you expressing kind words about the stories I’ve shared, that it feels as if I have suddenly started channeling my daughter. With no previous writing experience of my own to claim, it’s as if Londyn has become my muse and I am simply the tool through which she can share her many adventures.

      And it’s not just this blog but other things that have now so significantly shifted my day to day routine and slowly redefined my person. As the holidays once again creep up, symbolically defining the end of yet another humanly defined chapter in time, I can’t help but reflect on all that has changed. It’s in that change a pattern emerges. One embedded with new traditions, some intentionally created but many, organically born out of our blind navigation through this dark tunnel we’ve found ourselves left to wander.

     It’s the weekend visits to the benches, every Sunday as weather permits, that has found us more often than not meeting new friends. Some sharing stories of their own grief journey and finding solace in the benches themselves. But many simply strangers, expressing heartfelt condolences for our loss. The weekend tending of her garden, a special place designated in our backyard full of all the things that help us feel her presence.

        It’s the writing in our journals to Londyn, a routine loyally practiced by her dad at least two to three times a week and something I find myself doing when I’m at my loneliest. Or the daily talks I share with my daughter in the car, a seemingly weird but somehow intimate and safe space that often finds me shedding my daily dose of tears and more often than not sparks new memories to inspire the creation of my next post.

       It’s the new birthday traditions, one spent reflecting on the incredible young woman we were blessed to call our own and, in turn, a day spent dedicated paying it forward in ways we feel Londyn would approve. And the magnets lovingly purchased on trips of new places visited, not a new tradition, but one developed by my daughter and I years ago that my son and I now loyally see through.

       And of course, it’s in the way we now find ourselves spending the holidays. The dedication and decoration of her very own beautiful white tree, filled with ornaments reflecting all things Londyn. The purchase of lilies at Easter or poinsettias at Christmas through our church, a way to keep sharing her name and memory with others. And more recently, at holiday gatherings, the lighting of a candle and sharing of a poem to make sure her presence and those of all our loved ones lost in years past are felt and seen.

     Traditions have always been the anchor that keeps our connection to those things that are most important to us and so it is with the experience of grief I find this is certainly no exception. As we slowly work to find our footing, the practice of these new habits seem to provide a map of sorts through our tunnel and suddenly...a light, very slight but ever growing, begins to emerge. It is a long way off yet, but there all the same and so hope begins to lay its roots. A hope that life will still be full of reasons to smile and adventures to take. And hope that, when our journey comes to an end and we emerge from this tunnel, squinting through the blinding light, I will see the image of a beautiful red headed angel materialize, greeting me with open arms.

To those who have chosen to wander through this dark tunnel with us, in whatever form that has been, we thank you. From our family to yours Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.