I have been writing to you for many years and I have never written about what to do with the anniversaries of loss.

A wonderful woman reached out to me yesterday and asked me if I would write about this.

So here it goes.

Anniversaries of loss feel like a big train approaching the platform.

Heavy, noisy. Old. Loud.

And you can hear it coming for a while.

You know it’s arriving at a specific time, on schedule.

And you are supposed to get on it.

Ride that train for the day.

Ride its heaviness.

This train is slow.

It takes forever to get to the destination of tomorrow.

But you feel there is no other way to get to the next day but ride the train of the anniversary of your loss.

It is not a birthday.

It is simply a death day.

I am so very sorry to call it with its own name.

I remember riding that train during the first few anniversaries.

Honestly I was nauseous.

Everything came back.

The ICU.

The last tragic days.

The oxygen masks.

My little girls saying goodbye to their dad.

I mean.. talk about torture.

Bring out the knives.

That anniversary train was not fun.

It was all about the death day.

And not about the man I was in love with away from the hospital beds, the morphine and the pain.

It had nothing to do with honoring him.

Nothing at all.

I was honoring death every time I took the anniversary train.

So 2 anniversaries later the train was approaching…my date is July 21st.

And I am standing at the platform.

I can hear it arriving. Heavy, loud. Slow.

And all the death memories were flashing before my eyes even before my boarding.

I had to ask myself is this what I have to go through every single year and is this remembering him?

The answer was a big loud NO.Louder than the train.

I left the platform and ran.

Ran away from the anniversary train.

Where did I go instead?

I went to the beach.

I went to the places we visited.

I talked about him to people who never knew him.

I smiled when I said his name.

Yes it is sad.

Yes there are tears.

Yes it sucks.

I am sorry there is no way around this.

Your heart will fill heavy.

But don’t get on the death day train.

Run away and find the sky, the moon, the sea.

The memories. The journey. The celebration.

On his birthday we would go and sing to his grave.

We would bring breakfast and sit there and sing, and the girls would dance.

They would say. Are you 1, are you 2, are you 3 are you 4…. All the way to his new age.

In a few days he would have been 43, and then in a few days after that he would be gone for 8 years.

The train does not visit me anymore.

There is nobody waiting on the platform.

From where I am standing those anniversaries are excuses to celebrate the life of the man who is the father

of my kids.

The man who taught me how to be a warrior through his 4 year battle with the beastpeople call cancer.

The man who showed me how much he loved life and how much he did not want to say goodbye to his

kids.

Yes its sad, and unfair and not what happens to most 35 year olds but that stream of thought takes meback to the train.

And that is not where he would want me to be.

He said to me once. “Christina look at the big picture. The first couple of years will be tough but after that

you have to make sure you get to live.”

If he knew about the anniversary train, he would smile and shake his head and say it is not where I live.

It is not where my legacy is.

My legacy is inside of you.

And in the lives of my girls.

Go. Go. Go. Remember me, but don’t get on that train.

I am going to ask you the same.

Don’t get on that train, it doesn’t really go anywhere and:

Healing only lives in celebrating the lives of the ones we have lost, not how they died. (Click to Tweet!)

With love,

Christina

P.S. Make sure you have a copy of my new book Where Did You Go?

 

Christina

Christina

Christina Rasmussen is an author, speaker and social entrepreneur who believes that grief is an evolutionary experience required for launching a life of adventure and creative accomplishment.

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8 Comments

  • Darlene Dvorak says:

    Thank you for your message in the bottle today. I know that train sadly my 2 year anniversary was a week ago. That is exactly how it feels. October was a horrible month but I did realize that wasn’t what my husband would want me to do to myself and our family. I did jump on that train for a short span but not long. I will be ok❤️ Thank you at least I know I’m not crazy.

  • Cathy says:

    I love this????I lost my son and yes the whole month of his tragic death I still have anxiety and the whole month of his birthday and the holidays. I do not call them anniversaries though.i try honor his life everyday but everyday I think….. look what he’s is missing out on. It’s been 12 yrs and still feels like yesterday????????

  • Heather F. says:

    I won’t get to the first anniversary until March 2019. I couldn’t get on the train even if I wanted to. You see, 7 hours after my husband was pronounced, I helped bring our grandson into this world. I have chosen to celebrate both lives on that day. The one that left us and the one brought to us. No other way to do it.

  • Rose says:

    Hello- I am trying to understand, so do you recognize the date of death, but you celebrate instead or mourn? That I understand, but ignoring the date could never happen.
    “From where I am standing those anniversaries are excuses to celebrate the life of the man who is the father
    of my kids.”

  • Ellen Moser says:

    Holy crap. I have been more down this month than any time since we lost Freddie on 2/22/18. I cannot begin to say how important it was for me to read this right now. I actually feel so much better about this now… thank you so very, very much.

  • Linda M says:

    This is rather how I feel about the day he died. People are horrified when they hear the date February 14th????????, yes Valentine’s Day. But what is that day about? It’s about the people we love. Not flowers, cards, and candy. Those things are nice. I loved getting them, but. It’s about the people we love. Our relationship with them, our love for them. It’s caring and loving and how we feel about them. And I would not have wanted him to suffer one more day. And he would have if he had died on some other day. I will always love him. Valentine’s Day will always be for me a day to remember all that we were, and how much I loved him. And the whole world celebrates with me.

  • Michelle Zolla says:

    Thank you Christina!

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