This is our second holiday season since Cassie’s diagnosis. Our first one, last year, did not go all that well. Like most families we have our share of holiday traditions. Parties we attend. Celebrations we host. Silly sweaters we wear. Foods we love. Foods we quibble over (like Dan’s annual attempt to update the old fashioned green bean casserole at Thanksgiving). Gifts we send. On and on.
Traditions are good. They are something to look forward to. They’re fun. They anchor us and provide comfort. So last year we didn’t really change a thing. We did it all. Actually, we did even more as we raised the bar on ourselves by adding new dishes to some meals and cramming in new events between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We thought that we had better pack it all in because “who knows what next year will bring or how Cassie will feel?” It was too much.
To be clear last year’s holidays weren’t horrible. They just didn’t turn out as we had expected. Of course it was great to spend time with family and to see friends and without question the food was delicious (well not the “new” green bean casserole but everything else). It was just that we really wiped ourselves out and for the first time in our lives together we couldn’t wait for the holidays to be over. We were also so busy (and Cassie had so much less energy) that we wound up being disconnected at different times as Dan tried to compensate all on his own for Cassie’s diminished capacity. Finally, we came to realize that last year we had inadvertently made ourselves really sad. That’s because we had set up a direct comparison between the way all of our traditions used to feel (pre-diagnosis) and how they felt in our first set of holidays post-diagnosis and that turned out not to be a good comparison.
We have subsequently discovered that having hard holidays is pretty common for couples wrestling with a terminal cancer diagnosis. We have both heard lots of stories in our support groups and discussed it during therapy. One wise person observed that you have to go through “all of the seasons” to truly understand how much everything — every holiday, occasion, anniversary, tradition, etc. — has changed.
So now we’ve been through all the seasons, and while we still have lots to learn, we are approaching this year’s holidays differently. We are creating some new traditions for our “new normal” so that we are no longer making side-by-side comparisons to the way things used to be. We are doing less and asking for more help. We are building in down-time. We are checking in with each other often and altering plans as necessary to stay healthy and connected. We are trying hard to appreciate these holidays for what they are and for all that we have right now and not look backwards with nostalgia or forwards with angst. It still feels really different but at least so far it’s a lot better than last year and our hope is that along with our ever-present sadness we are also creating room for some holiday joy to return. Oh yeah and this year’s re-imagined green bean casserole was better too so we have that going for us, which is nice.
