Day 150 of Grief: Creating a Christmas Resource and The Ewings

I am going to put together a guide on how to survive Christmas with grief. This is the beginning of me putting one together, written as Dan and I try to work out how to get through our first Christmas without Darren. I will only fully create the resource when I know how it has been for me. But I will still try to develop it as I go.

Dan and I have never faced a Christmas like this before. We are in a situation where we have to navigate it and try to stop ourselves having a shit-awful time, while making sure we just get through it.

Darren loved Christmas and I hated it. With him, he made me actually enjoy it. We would be very festive and look forward to Christmas Day, even when it was just the two of us: cooking, presents, wine, cheese, watching rubbish on TV together (Doctor Who was my particular thing). Just silly things like that.

Then Dan came along, and there was someone else in the mix. Christmas in our house was a BIG thing. It was a really, really happy time, not that other times weren’t happy, more that Darren and I made sure every Christmas for Dan was the best one ever.

So my thought is that I’m going to write a guide about it, about getting through it. But first, I have to get through it. If you have any ideas about how to get through the festive period, contact me 🙂

“I’m JR Ewing, I don’t get ulcers, I give them.“

Earlier, I had to go to the solicitor’s to sign some documents. I was pretty chipper, dandering over and listening to the Fontaines as per. It was a dry, sunny day. The solicitor was lovely and everything was relaxed. Then, as we were chatting, I looked at her folder and it said “Pickering Estate”.

If Darren had known he would somehow be associated with a “Pickering Estate”, he would have cackled madly. He would have loved the idea of having a sign outside the door called Pickering Estate. The whole idea would have been hilarious to him, mainly because he wasn’t remotely materialistic or career-driven. The idea of him ending up with an estate!

Being from the country, I know about of land ownership. When we bought the house, I would say to Darren, This is your land now. You’re like Scarlett O’Hara and Tara, I would joke. He loved it. Many cold callers got short shrift if Darren answered the door, and I would suggest he should shout, Ger off my land! like Farmer Palmer in Viz.

It’s like something out of Dallas, the Ewing ranch, The Pickering Estate. He and I would have slagged each other. We would have had the greatest night laughing at the idea that he had an estate. We would have debated whether he should be addressed as M’Lord. Owning property or wealth accumulation wasn’t important as us. Being happy, together and healthy was, but at the same time, I think our home gave him a sense of security he had never felt in his life.

Anyhow, back at the solicitor’s, it got a bit emotional. Just seeing his name on pages I needed to sign. Talking about his estate with someone who never met him, he was a name on a page. Our solicitor is lovely, by the way; this was all a ‘me’ situation. I ended up walking to St Colmcilles, sitting outside the chapel and weeping.

The Pickering Estate. It was our castle and our keep, to quote Madness.