Holidays

“Does anyone have a belt?” my aunt asked.

With spunk, my under-two-year-old cousin had refused to eat a dish Nana made for Easter. Nana became enraged. She would not tolerate disobedience, not even from a baby. My aunt had tried but failed to get him to eat, so she asked for a belt.

Across the table, Papa slipped his belt off and handed it to my aunt. Everyone at the table (outside of our angry Nana) sat in shock as my aunt took the belt and her baby to the room off of the entryway and began whipping him. They were out of sight, but so close to us. He shrieked with pain. We heard two hard whips come down on him before my mom walked over to take my cousin away from my aunt. The whipping had already created divots in his tender and developing spine.

My aunt seemed torn about punishing her baby to placate my grandma, but how could she cause so much pain? My baby cousin clearly could not understand that he did anything wrong and could not connect his punishment to his behavior. Without an intervention, how will he grow up to see love as anything other than something that requires physical pain and punishment? Is that why in my darkest moments, hurting myself feels like a a good option?

I don’t remember going to Nana and Papa’s house for holidays after that incident. Their home used to host our large extended family, but in the years leading up to this Easter, fewer and fewer people had been going to their house for holidays. My grandma’s raging alcoholism was getting the best of her and my grandpa was dying of kidney failure. Nana was his in-home nurse. It is not good to have an alcoholic as your in-home nurse because you never know when they might go down to bed “with a headache” for a few days. We eventually learned going to bed with a headache means you will binge drink and pass out in bed because of that drinking. Hard to do dialysis in that state.

As a child, not every holiday was filled with violence and rage. But my siblings and I knew our mom or Nana could get angry and none of us wanted that to happen. Particularly me. I would eat anything Nana placed before me and do anything my mom asked me to do. My Papa managed my Nana’s anger until he died and my dad managed my mom’s anger until they separated. I started my attempts to please them as soon as I realized they would calm down if they got their way. What is love other than giving someone exactly what they want, exactly when they want it?

“Holidays bring up memories for me.” -Lauren (just joking around)

I would like to enjoy the holidays without an emotional meltdown. In theory, it seems so simple. I tell myself that all I have to do is to understand myself well enough to work through my past, to get to the bottom of it, and to let it go. Then I will feel joy instead of having my days blurred by memories of my past.

But it is possible that the answer is not to avoid the pain but to embrace it, to accept that pain will always exist alongside joy. My grief does not mean my holiday will be less joyful than someone who has not experienced the same level of trauma. Sure, I may spend a bit more time crying around the holidays than a less traumatized person. But maybe if I feel everything without hiding from it, I will feel joy as deeply as I feel that pain.

If I am honest with myself, I love holidays. I love being around supportive and loving family, sharing happy food and conversations. And I love glitter, glowing candles, and cozy nights.

I have not allowed myself to love the holidays for many years, because I felt I could not do the holidays “perfectly” enough. Because of the grief the holidays trigger, there are days I barely function. I try to isolate myself so that my sadness cannot “ruin” anyone else’s day. Before I met my fiancé, I would successfully isolate myself and avoid being around others on holidays. I felt safer that way. Incredibly, my fiancé understands and tells me my sadness is okay. I fight him and tell him I do not want to fly to Minnesota. I do not want to go to the family event. And he says it is okay. Just come along and see how it goes. And I am infinitely grateful for that.