Hello Friends. I realized that even though I have overshared every little detail of our lives since Jamie left us, I haven’t really talked about our first holiday season without him yet. So, I thought I would hop on the blog tonight and talk about that just a little bit. I'll try to keep this one short and sweet.

To say that I usually love Christmas is an understatement. It’s my favorite time of year. I am always the person that can’t wait for the magic of the holidays to fill our home. It is a tradition for me to put up a tree (and then some) in every single room of our house. However, the weeks leading up to the holiday this year were brutal; an absolute emotional nightmare. I had a really hard time finding that holiday spark. Of course, my parents felt the same way. Putting up their festive decorations was the very last thing they felt like doing too. But as my incredibly strong parents always do, they led by example. We have six beautiful children in our family that deserved a beautiful Christmas, so they dug deep, found the strength to keep with tradition and they forged ahead, which gave me the strength to do the same.

Christmas Eve is and has always been my absolute favorite day of the year. Life gets so busy and it is easy to let the busyness of life be an excuse to not get together with family very often. But, Christmas Eve… it was our day. It was the one day a year I knew without a doubt that my brothers and their families, along with mine, would all pile into the little white house we grew up in and spend the entire day together. I anticipate Christmas Eve at my parent’s house all year long. This year, though, just thinking of that day was enough to make me almost suffocate. As it inched closer and closer my heart filled with dread instead of the excitement that I usually feel about that day. I had no idea how we could possibly face “going home for Christmas” without him. I kept reminding myself that so far, our record for surviving every hard day without him has been 100%. Somehow, we keep getting through the hard stuff and this was just going to be another first to add to the growing list of “Things We Have Survived Since Jamie Left Us”.

Everything that we have read and learned from our therapists about the first holiday season after losing a loved one told us that you should keep traditions but know that it is perfectly ok to lose, change, or add a few too. We knew going into this season that there was going to be a void like we have never felt before. It was going to hurt like hell. We had a choice. We could try to not acknowledge it and try to fool ourselves into pretending that his absence wasn’t going to be blatantly and painfully obvious. OR, we could choose to embrace it, acknowledge it for what it is, and find a way to still make Jamie a part of our Christmas Eve together. We chose the latter. We had a beautiful lantern made for him. On one side it says, “Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day, unseen, unheard, but always near, still loved, still missed, and very dear”. The other side says, “In Loving Memory, Jamie Bryant Robbins, 1979-2018”. We decided that this lantern will only be lit one night a year, on Christmas Eve.

In theory, this was a great idea. However, when it came time to gather as a family and execute our plan of lighting the lantern it was so much harder than we imagined. Jamie’s three precious, beautiful, and incredibly brave children stood shoulder to shoulder, and we all watched with tears running down our faces as his oldest, Evan, lit his Dad’s lantern. It was one of the most painful yet beautiful moments we have experienced as a family since Jamie left us. It took us a long time to gather ourselves. We gave ourselves the grace in that moment to mourn, to cry, to hug, to love, and to acknowledge Jamie’s absence from our lives.

The reason I share this story is because I want you to know that no matter how overwhelming your grief is, there is so much beauty that can be found in the pain if only you can open your heart enough to see it. I don’t think that we fully realized that until that moment either. I am just now starting to truly believe that God doesn’t waste our pain. He uses all the broken pieces and He makes something beautiful out of it if you let Him. If you had been standing in my parent’s family room that Christmas Eve night, I think you would believe the same thing too. That room has never been filled with as much love as it was right then, and it is a moment that I will never forget for as long as I live.

We received so many cards, messages, gifts, and kind gestures from so many of you during this holiday season. I truly thank each and every single one of you for your thoughtfulness. Your friendship and love continue to help us face each day. We are so blessed by every one of you. On behalf of my family, thank you. We hope that you and yours had a beautiful Christmas Season too.

None of us know what this new year will bring us. Life is full of twists and turns, good and bad. I hope 2019 brings you nothing but joy and happiness, but we all know that in reality it will probably bring you some challenges too. No matter what it brings you, I hope that you remember you are loved, you are worthy, your life here matters, and that you are somebody's Jamie.

XOXO – Jennifer

National Hotline for Suicide Prevention: 1-800-273-TALK