Jillian Chantal

Christmas Eve, 2025. The third one without my mother. Year one was hard. Year two was even harder for some reason. No one tells you that. They all talk about the first year being the hardest. But then year two comes and smacks you in the face.

Year three was easier, but she was still everywhere. Not that deep ache that makes the day unbearable, but gently wafting over the room. Her love for the whole season shone through. In the decorations Dad pulled out—some we haven’t seen since she passed on— and in the smiles of the children and grandchildren she loved so much, even in the one grandson she never met. His first Christmas on Earth and he’ll never know just how much she would have doted on him and wanted to hold him and cover him with blessings from her heart.

It was also the 49th Christmas without our paternal grandmother. A woman who made everyone she encountered feel like the only person in the world. She had extraordinary gifts of many kinds, art, sewing, music, cooking, and gardening. But her greatest gift was the amount of time she spent making her children and grandchildren feel special and adored. She has been missed every day since she passed away. Her love always encircles us at Christmas and every day for that matter. Her passing almost tore the family asunder when my grandfather remarried way too soon to a predatory woman who did her best to shatter the love my grandmother surrounded us with. The woman ultimately failed and I believe that was due to how my grandmother blessed her children with care and adoration all of their lives. They found a way forward, keeping their bonds of love alive.

My maternal grandfather was a family man through and through. He passed away a few days before Christmas the year I turned eight, so he has been gone 57 years. I still have many vivid memories of him. A sweet, kind man who, with my grandmother, raised ten children of his own as well as some of his teenage grandchildren when they were too much for their mother to take care of in the turbulent sixties. He was always so gentle with us grandchildren. A man who served in WWI and worked hard to provide for his family during the depression, traveling all over to work in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He always wore a fedora which is how I remember him the most.

We learned of his death when we arrived for the Christmas holiday that year. He passed while we were on the road from Virginia to Alabama. My mother’s scream and hysteria when my other grandfather broke the news to her still plays in my head during the holiday season. She loved him so fiercely that her wails of anguish still echo down the years.

I can’t listen to the Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer song because it hits hard. Especially the part about taking back the gifts as my mother and her sister, as the only two daughters, had that task. It was terrible for them and such a sad Christmas that year. Mom even forgot to bake me a birthday cake on the 28th due to her grief. There’s a poignant picture of me sitting at the table with no cake in front of me from that year.

These are just three of the ghosts of Christmases past who I feel the presence of each year.  They are representative of the massive amounts of love I was raised with and these three are only the tip of the iceberg of those I’ve loved and lost and live in hope to one day see again. Family is everything. I treasure mine, both living and gone.

Hold your memories and loved ones close this New Year and every year. Blessings to all who read this blog.