Why Entering a New Year Can Be Tough

When the ball at Times Square drops, champagne corks pop. Ample hugs and kisses are dispensed all around.

A new year, new hope, new ventures, new possibilities. Wow, it’s all so exciting!

However, for the parent who has lost a child in the previous year, the dawning of a new calendar year can be rough. In fact, most of the time, it is.

Daniel died at age four in February 1997 and entering 1998 was hard. My mind was filled with questions like: What am I doing entering a new year without him? How can this be? Why do I get to live and he died?

I was overcome with the feeling that I was leaving him behind. Because there it was, a fresh untouched year and I knew that none of the 365 days in it would contain a hug from him. There would be no new memories, no sixth birthday to watch him blow out the candles. 1998 was the year he was to start first grade and be in school with his big sister.

How could I be excited about a new year?

Change isn’t easy for many of us. While most want to get rid of an old used year, and enter something new and hopeful, for the bereaved mother or father, that is not always the case. Many can say, “Good riddance to 2013; it was a lousy year.” But for others, that was the year their son or daughter died, and moving from it, means a parent is moving further from the last time he or she saw her/his child.

Bereaved parents have fragile hearts. They might look okay, wear matching socks, use the correct salad fork, and even smile, but deep down in the fibers of their heart, they are struggling. Life seems so normal for everybody else-----but them. They can think life is easy for others---but them. Getting out of bed can be a major accomplishment. Celebrating holidays can be consumed with sadness instead of happiness.

If you have a bereaved friend, help her/him by letting this year be a year where she/he can freely share stories about a deceased son or daughter. Let those in your lives with broken hearts speak of the memories etched in their minds. Let your friends know that you will not forget their children for however short or long these children lived.

So, it’s a new year. May we all strive to make it an empathetic 2014 where we learn richly from one another.

Carrying Memories into the New Year

When it's time to seal away an old year and uncork the new one, I usually feel excited, anticipating what is in store. A new year brings new adventures, and with these come hope. Hope that a fresh year will begin with beauty, be filled with beauty, and end with even more beauty.

In 1997, I entered the year with hope that my son Daniel would finish his treatments for cancer (neuroblastoma) and become a healthy boy of four once again. Instead, Daniel took a turn for the very worst. He got an infection, went into a coma, and died in my arms on February 2.

When 1997 ended and people were making new year's resolutions, eagerly anticipating another 365 days, I could not join them. I did not want 1997 to end. Heading into 1998 would be entering a new year without Daniel. As each day passed, it was one more day since I'd last read him a story, bathed him, or laughed with him.

Since his birth, I'd begun five new years, each one, with him and my other children by my side. But now, he was gone.

I knew I'd have to find a way to enter the new year with him. I imagined a basket, made of a heavy weaving, like one we'd received a floral arrangement in when Daniel was born in 1992. On slips of paper, I wrote single words and strings of words to capture events and sayings Daniel had experienced. Some were funny, some tender, but above all, each one made me smile.

I would carry both figuratively and literally these pleasant memories of my son into the new year.

There was no fear that he would be forgotten or that the next year would be void of his memories.

He would not make any new memories in 1998, but I would carry the old with me.

With the church bell’s ringing
the New Year enters
echoing the days of yesteryear.

Memories of happiness
the smiles of our children,
the sunlight within each face.

Who will remember these dear ones
far from our yearning arms?
Who remembers all they were,
the way she danced, the hat he wore?
With the old year gone
will they no longer be known?

We will remember them, each one.
We will hold them in our hearts
as we carry memories into this New Year.

We will allow the memories
to make us laugh, to make us sing.
Their lives will fill the air
as the church bells ring.

~ Alice J. Wisler