In this deeply personal reflection, Beewan Athwal, mother of Amy (6/12/2008 – 12/5/2020), shares how her family has navigated the holidays since losing their daughter and how their traditions, grief, and love continue to evolve each December.

Christmas is not the same since Amy died. In fact, the whole of December is grueling.

December is hard because Amy died on the 5th. Both mine and my husband’s birthdays are in that month too and it feels so unfair to age when Amy didn’t get a chance to.

We also have the anniversary of Amy’s funeral, on the 21st, winter solstice. Her funeral was held during the height of Covid and I will always remember friends and neighbours socially distancing outside our home, lining our street so they could meet the hearse and the funeral director asking if anyone wanted to pay their respects and people passing the hearse silently and giving us their sympathies. We were only allowed to invite 30 people to the funeral under government guidelines here in the UK, so people paid their respects this way instead outside our home.

We have all the above dates to contend with before we even get to Christmas. We are already emotionally spent.

The first Christmas as bereaved parents was only three weeks after Amy died. That morning my husband and I, plus our son who was 19 at the time opened gifts that Amy had got us. She had got me a novel from an author I liked. The present was labelled ‘Mummy’ in her handwriting. I have kept both the book and the wrapping. We decided to go for a walk that day as no one wanted to ‘do’ Christmas. There are books that suggest historical walks around London, we picked a walk around East London and spent about four hours doing that. My husband and son were really focused on the walk and the historical facts in the book. I felt like I was walking through treacle, I felt like I was weighed down and behind my skin, nothing felt real. I had no will to do the walk and it all seemed absurd. That first Christmas no one messaged on that day, I think everyone had helped get us to the funeral stage and  they all needed a break from the sadness of it all but of course there was no escaping it for us. In Whitechapel, we passed some Muslim men giving out food parcels for Christmas from their Mosque. There were insistent that we take some food. I think we took juices from them, I think they could tell something was wrong as I must’ve looked so sad. We did eat that day, it was the first time I ate properly since Amy died. Those early days and weeks eating was a chore, chewing felt like hard work. I couldn’t even finish a whole smoothie. On Christmas, a shop was open selling Indian snacks. I brought a bag of hot pakoras, I’ve always enjoyed these. I bit one, the spice and soft onion tasted good. I bit again and I knew that I was deciding to live as I was now eating. It felt like a betrayal to Amy but I knew that eating meant I was going to live so I had to find a way I could do that.

As the day went on the streets got busy with people going to visit friends and families, we decided to go home as their joy felt too much. When we got home, I went to bed and wept, crying loudly. My husband came up to check on me and tell me our son could hear, and I hadn’t tried to enjoy the day. I lost my temper and told him I had just lost my daughter. He later apologized and admitted her had some kind of romantic notion of us as the new family getting through that day and being happy. He knew it was too soon but wanted that version of reality. We later came across a podcast where Julia Samuels talked about grieving parents and said it’s common for men to want to be restorative and find a way to get on with life, where women often  have to sit with the trauma, grief and try to figure out the emotions. Slowly they influence each other and help each other. That’s certainly true for us. My husband helped me to live again and I got him to slow down and sit with the emotions.

The next Christmas was a non-event in our house. I was newly pregnant with our second son. I get extreme pregnancy sickness so I was in bed, trying to sleep as much as possible to stop myself being ill.

The third Christmas our eldest son insisted we try and do Christmas for our new son, who was only 5 months old. Our eldest son really made it his task to make the day jolly. It didn’t feel right but we all tried and I made an Xmas lunch. Then got in the car and drove to Hampstead heath, which is a very big, wooded parkland in North London. When we got there, we saw big family groups doing their Christmas walks. We had already decided that we would all go our separate ways to have some processing time. I thought about Amy, grief, how different my life could’ve been with her living.

The following year, we opened presents in the morning, made a big deal over our toddlers’ toys and got presents for each other. We went back to Hampstead Heath, but this year we walked all together. Our toddler picked up sticks and stones and we herded him to stay with us. We spoke to each other about how we had changed and about Amy and reminded ourselves of times gone by. We also spoke about a new change coming too. I was pregnant again, with another daughter.

Last Christmas was a relief. Everyone had the flu in December and our newest baby had been admitted to hospital with suspected Sepsis. Earlier in November our eldest son had been violently mugged and saw it as a sign that he should start living. So, when we hit Christmas, we decided to go all in. We decorated the house, brought loads of presents, our eldest son mixed cocktails for us through the day and I made a massive spread for Christmas lunch. It felt like it was time to give the new kids and our eldest a fun time. Without guilt as that is what Amy would’ve wanted too. She would want us to be happy and to celebrate. She would not have liked the idea of her siblings going without joy because of her.

This Christmas is nearly upon us. I still get angry about people’s jolly behaviour when its early December as its over Amy’s death anniversary but I am excited to enjoy Christmas with our three living children. Amy will always have a place in our family. We will light a candle for her on that day and tell the little kids stories about their sister that they never met. No doubt we will feel sad at some point, but we know that we will be held and can go off for a quiet moment.