Grief

 It hits differently during the holidays.

Even now, on the other side of losing my wife of 43 years—working on healing, thriving, and loving the life I’m trying to rebuild—the holidays can bring up unexpected feelings.

It’s not so much about missing my wife, although I really do miss her every day. It’s about missing the version of life I thought I’d be living. The traditions. The moments together. The traveling experiences we hoped to have. Watching our children grow and achieve…

And if you feel this too, I want you to know: it’s NORMAL.

You can be ultimately over it, at peace with your past, and fully into the life you’ve now created, and yet you still feel all of the stuff. Especially at this time of year (Christmas holidays).

Because what I want you to know is that… Grief isn’t linear. Healing isn’t a destination you just go to.

And no matter how far you’ve come, this time of year has a way of resurfacing old wounds.

What I’ve learned:

• Honor those feelings, but don’t get stuck in them.
• Hold space for grief and gratitude, and remarkably you can do this at the same time.
• Feel the loss while you still celebrate how far you’ve come.

If you are just beginning to navigate this stuff, I want you to know it won’t always be this heavy. There will come a time when, looking back at this time, you will feel proud of how you showed up for yourself. You will see how strong you are, even when you don’t feel like it.

Grieving the life you thought you’d have doesn’t mean you’re not moving forward.

• It doesn’t mean you’re not strong.
• It doesn’t mean you’ll feel like this forever.
• It means you’re human.

This holiday season, make space for it all—the moments where you feel the weight of what’s missing and when you remind yourself of the new life you are building.

If this feels like it syncs with you, just know you’re not alone. It’s OK to grieve. It’s OK to feel it. And it’s OK to hold onto hope for what’s next. What other people say is not that important.

The truth is, the holidays don’t have to be about just holding it all together. You can start prioritizing yourself. The best gift you can give yourself is the decision to focus on your healing, growth, and rediscovery.

Kennedy

Last Friday was my birthday, and thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday.

It was also the 61st anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. I couldn’t find any information about that, remembrance, or anything else in my Friday news.

Many people don’t remember why he was shot. But this was an act not of the Russians (which is a popular theory) or the lone gunman on a hill. Maybe it was plain old white supremacist politics, just like what we have going on right now.

President Kennedy and his brother supported an effort to get James Meredith, a black man, into the University of Mississippi. The Department of Justice had ruled that they must register this man. Many courts had ruled that he must be registered. The governor there physically barred him from getting to the registrar. Eventually, many Highway Patrol and 500 U.S. Marshalls helped him get into the dorm. A riot broke out, and 300 people were injured, and two died. On Oct 1, 1962, Meredith became the first black man to go to Ole Miss. He Graduated a year later despite all of the continued harassment, injuries, and extreme isolation.

The following year, President Kennedy knew that feuding between party leaders in Texas could jeopardize his chances of winning the state in 1964. Thus, one objective of the trip was to bring Democrats together. This support strengthening and the recent Meredith incidents at Ole Miss were loosely connected. Race issues continued to simmer, and contrary to today, the Republicans were good; Meredith had registered Republican, and most of the white supremacists were in the South, among the Democrats.

I remember Lady Bird Johnson writing about that day; one thing stands out in my memory. She described Jackie Kennedy in her pink suit as covered in blood, her legs and one of her white gloves being caked in her husband’s blood. She was an elegant lady; she even had a Secret Service codename of “Lace.” It was horrific what she went through. Lady Bird Johnson wrote that Jackie, coming out of a stupor, told her she would get changed later and wanted them to see what they had done. She was only 34 years old.