15. last speaker

written 4 months and 18 days after

I started to understand how hard the holidays would be when I began to feel the creeping press of Christmas and New Year’s on me as soon as December dawned.

My attention, already ragged with grief, began to splinter even more and I struggled to write—even short emails made my eyes sting. My fingers on the keyboard felt clumsy, and I kept mistyping words—which I don’t normally do.

I found myself resisting the thought of the holidays without him, and flinching at media that emphasized merriment and joy-finding and gratitude. I felt myself bracing, as December moved closer to Christmas, for what the first winter season without him would bring, what fresh facet of loss would be revealed to me.

When I woke up on Christmas Eve, though I desperately wanted it to be just another, awful day without him, or even better, a day when he had finally come back, it was neither of these. My parents, graciously, did not play music or decorate or reference the holidays really at all out of deference to m…