When I lived overseas, I spent a few holidays alone. I moved there alone. I left to move back to the States alone. And by “alone,” I mean by myself alone. Sometimes married friends would commiserate, “We feel lonely, too.” And I would think, when you can use a plural pronoun–we–you cannot fully understand the meaning of “I feel lonely.” I have not forgotten that.

I realize how blessed I am to use a plural pronoun. I get that. Being intentional about Thanksgiving and Christmas does not mean me making a plan for myself. But I still need to make a plan for the two of us. Compared to a large smiling family, two can also feel lonely. Grief is hard no matter how many people remain.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we had my mom’s memorial service. It was beautiful and honoring to her. The best part was all the extended family who came, many traveling quite a distance. Mom would have loved knowing they were all there, looking at her photo albums at my house beforehand, recounting memories and stories from her limitless supply.

But then the family left to go to their own homes, and just Steve and I remained. For the last thirteen years in my caregiving role, all of our holiday gatherings have revolved around my parents. We grew accustomed to the four of us.

Now that my parents are gone, I just couldn’t motivate myself to cook a big meal and make things festive for such a small number. So we didn’t. We picked up take-out turkey dinners and ate in our dining room, decked out for fall.

We couldn’t ignore the obvious. Something was missing. The song from Les Miserables, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” kept playing in my mind. Phantom faces, phantom shadows. I placed name cards that my mom had made several years ago at their former places. Steve and I acknowledged the empty seats at our Thanksgiving table while giving thanks to God–through tears–for our absent loved ones. We remembered them, answering our sadness with happy memories.

“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them,” writes Francis Ward Weller.

When we finished eating, we took off to drive into the mountains. Most trees were bare of leaves, but they proudly held their heads high with dignity. There was something beautiful about them. Majestic even. And the occasional evergreen managed to peek through. Life was still visible. My life feels as though it’s been stripped bare at times, but this intense sadness only lasts for a season. It will pass.

We made it through this first Thanksgiving, our first modified Thanksgiving, with a new tradition of going to the mountains. Now we must be intentional about Christmas. After Mom’s service, I knew I didn’t have the energy to haul down the many boxes of decorations from the attic and put everything out. Besides, if I went to all that trouble, who would see it?

I would. We would. I knew that if I skipped decorating altogether, I’d be depressed. So I decorated a little, a scaled-down version just for my husband and me. We started to make plans for a few Christmas activities, not too many but something to look forward to, something to put in our calendar.  Community theatre, horse drawn carriage rides, church dinners, Christmas shopping, advent devotionals, a Romanian concert. The best antidote to feeling lonely is to initiate with someone, so we reached out to invite a few lonelier-than-us people over in December, a tradition we set in place our first year of marriage.

Mostly, we want to remember and be thankful for all the years God gave us with Mom and Dad, while not running away from the sadness at their absence. We want to hold grief and gratitude together, in hands outstretched to the Lord.