David and the girls after putting up the Christmas tree

It is now getting colder, daylight is considerably shorter. The darkness coupled with the coldness is making things gloomier. Additionally, we are approaching the holiday season which I know can also compound grief.

In fact, my older daughter has expressed her frustration about Christmas. She is very sad that her Dad will not be home and her crying seems to be even more frequent. She has repeatedly said that all she wants for Christmas is her Daddy and nothing else. She said she want to be able to hold him. She is sad that any christmas picture we take will be incomplete without Daddy so she does not know if she wants to take any Christmas pictures.

I have also found myself to be more frustrated and irritable lately. I have even been upset at the girls as they whine about minutia or inform me that Daddy was never upset with them. I have had to remind my daughters that even Daddy was upset with them when they were not behaving.

In addition to the colder, darker weather, I know one key reason I have been very frustrated and sad lately is because we are approaching the one year mark of the period when the illness took the worst turn. The week leading to thanksgiving last year was the beginning of a very sad, cold and dark period. It began when I had to call an ambulance to help transport David to the hospital and I realized it was likely his last trip to the hospital and I was completely afraid that he will never come back home. I wondered in a daze at what was happening to our lives and how me and my daughters were suppose to function or cope in a world without David.

A key part of how I function is trying to repress some of the ordeal we (especially David) went through between the end of November through January 2014 but  lately these memories keep taunting my mind.