It's Another NewYear to Face....

I am starting this by wishing you all a happy New Year.   I hope the Holidays found you all happy and healthy and found time to reflect on all that made your life full and complete in 2025.  

Last year the Holidays were hard.   I think I may have written about it, to be honest I frankly don’t remember.    I know there were a lot of tears and and feeling a big hole in how much we missed Big Daddy.   It was hard.

This year was different.   I approached it with a little more hope and a little more happiness.   I tried to find ways to bring new traditions and new things that the kids and I could focus on to bring happiness back to us in a time that just feels a little empty.   I’m not sure how successful I was, but I tried.

To be honest, it all hits differently.   It’s a lot quieter.   Where once there was a lot of big laughter and celebration, there is now quiet smiles and melancholy.   We made it through, and we had our fun, but it was different.   Christmas morning I woke early and had my coffee and sat a while with the memories of excitement we used to share waiting for the kids to open their gifts together.   I remembered you laughing and making comments over gifts.   I remembered the years where we stayed up late having a drink and assembling gifts together and laughing at how long it took, and watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” and crying because it’s such a beautiful movie.   I remember going to bed together and talking about how lucky we were to have such an amazing life to share such bounty with our kids and being able to spend time with the people we loved. 

Big Daddy, This year I woke up and reached for you and briefly had the thought you were there.  

That is how the whole holiday felt.   Like something was missing.   Like if I reached out far enough I might be able to find it.   And yet, no matter how far I reached, I just couldn’t find you.    So I had to find a new way.   And I did.    And it was okay,   

Not great.   But okay.   And we did it.   And it was better than last year.    

You were there in the ornaments on the tree, and the laughs we had.   You were there in the stories we told and the movies we watched and the memories.   And that is how we will get you now.    And I think we have accepted that.

Please know that the things that I changed aren’t because I want to erase you or our way of doing things, but because sometimes it is too hard to see how it used to be.   I didn’t hang the stockings, because it just reminds me that one is missing.   I changed the tree skirt because the one we bought together just made me think of how much we loved that it said “the Seversons” and that you gave me such a hard time I never changed my name.    I changed these things to make it easier for me.    But I still have them.   And I will ALWAYS love them.  

New Years is hard.   It’s hard to celebrate going into a New Year again that I know I will do without you.   

I read somewhere in the past days that it feels almost like I am closing the door on the time I had with you by celebrating a new year coming, and as crazy as that sounds, that is exactly how it feels.   But I hope you know, that it isn’t celebrating time without you, but celebrating time we have made it.   Time we have figured out how to move on and how to keep putting that proverbial one foot in front of another.   

Everything is so different.    I sit outside and feel the sun on my face, and that is where I know you are.   I hear the birds, or the planes in the sky, and those are the signs I know you are with me.   I wish I would feel you more,  but as time passes, it seems you move further away.    And maybe that is why the Holidays were different this year than I expected.   It wasn’t so much a collapse of emotion, just a quiet hole that was always there.   

So I guess what this is all to say is this.    I am moving into this New Year with the hope that we continue to move ahead,    That we continue to grow, and thrive, and give, and build into whoever we are meant to be without you.   

It’s different and we are figuring it out.  And each day, even though your loss never goes away, it gets easier to live with.    

Just know you are never forgotten.   And you are always missed.   And you are loved beyond words, forever.

So to all of you out there who choose to read this, I say a few things.    Cherish each and every day with those you love.   Time is not a given.   Hold on to memories like they are made of gold, because they will stay with you and one day may be what carry you through tough times and fill the gaps when the gaps seem bigger than stable ground, and share the love you have with all around you.    

And finally know this, grief is something that never ends.    It changes.   It gets easier, but it will be with the bearer of it for the rest of their days.    Even when they smile.   Even when they are joyful.   Being forced to move on without the person who completed you is a task that never ends.  

But I’m doing it.   And my goal this year is to continue to do it well.    To continue to make him, and MYSELF proud.    To build a life for myself that is full, and complete, and full of joy.   And for all of you, I want you to know that you make that all possible.

I love you Big Daddy.

Here is to a beautiful 2026.

T.