It’ll be the first December that I’ll spend Christmas without my husband. It’ll also be the first December that I’ll celebrate our anniversary alone.
While I still appreciate the beauty of the holidays, I’ve found myself choking back tears and trying to swallow golf-ball-sized lumps in the back of my throat.
Coming from a huge Italian family, I was never short of people to spend the holidays with. I never thought about the people who had to spend Christmas alone until I became one of them.
Now, I wonder: How can you suddenly hate a certain time a year that you once loved so much?
So this December, I’ve been finding ways to recapture joy and continue the healing journey that I’ve been on since my husband’s death — one that’s taken me to a place I’d never expected.
Finding joy in ‘pinpricks of light’
In the months after my husband’s death, I’ve received a lot of advice on how to “deal” with grief, but only one piqued my interest.
I was gently encouraged to start looking for pinpricks of light throughout my day. I was told that they could be anything — my favorite cup of tea, a new pair of shoes, my favorite flowers, or a walk in the woods.
I shrugged and half-heartedly agreed to try.
The fairy tree in Sherrodspark Woods became more than just a tree during a trip this past summer.
Lying at its base was a pink wand with iridescent streamers that were blowing in the wind. Next to it was a plastic box with a note on top that read, “leave a note for the fairies.” The box was filled with messages, mainly from children, but also from people asking the fairies to help guide them through their grief.
Figurines, hand-painted rocks and other trinkets lined the base of the tree along with a little wooden door carved in the trunk. For the first time in months, I smiled.
For the rest of the trip, I made it my daily routine to walk past the fairy tree to look for new additions. A few times I stopped to ask the locals about its origin, but the only thing I found out was that it popped up during the pandemic.