December Weight
December can feel heavy for so many people. The shorter days, the longer nights, and the reminders of the year coming to a close — it all seems to make every emotion sit a little closer to the surface. This week, that heaviness settled on me in a way I didn’t expect.
It started with a phone call from my sister. Her elderly neighbor had passed away on October 27th, and only this week did his son let her know. The news was sad, but what came next hit even harder.
On Wednesday, my brother called. His voice had that tone — the one that makes your stomach drop before you even hear the words. “Are you sitting down?” he asked. Then he said it: Carla passed away Sunday night in her sleep.
Carla. Thirty-one years old. The same Carla who, less than a year ago, stepped up to raise her older sister Leticia’s two young girls after Leticia died unexpectedly. And now, only eleven and a half months later, my cousin Patricia has lost two children. And before that… she had already lost a son to SIDS. A husband in an accident. Her dad. Her mom. Her stepdad.
My God. My heart aches at the thought of losing even one child — the idea of losing three is unimaginable.
In that heaviness, as I thought about the weight my cousin carries, my own memories surfaced too: the house fire in 2006, losing my brother-in-law in 2013 at age 37, the losses and upheavals that shaped me. But even as those memories resurfaced, I reminded myself: I survived those things. I came through them — maybe a little ragged, maybe a little stronger, or maybe somehow both.
And in that reflection came the question: How?
How do any of us get through things like this?
The answer is simpler than we expect:
One moment at a time.
That’s it. One breath, one task, one hour, one day at a time. Sometimes numb, sometimes terrified, sometimes held together by routine or prayer or pure grit — but still moving. Patricia is still going to work because she says it’s the only thing that feels normal while the rest of her life feels like a nightmare she can’t wake from. We all cling to something when the world tilts.
With all this swirling in my mind, I found myself returning to gratitude — not in comparison to anyone else’s pain, but in recognition of what is good, what is present, right now. We take so much for granted.
So look around:
Do you have a roof over your head?
Food to eat?
A job?
People who love you?
People you love?
Life isn’t perfect — not for any of us. Social media might make it seem like everyone else is living some shiny, effortless highlight reel, but real life is made of the moments that don’t make the cut.
So be grateful. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t overlook the small things that are actually the big things. And try not to let worry steal the few moments of peace you can claim.
Put your phone down a little more this season. Get some real face-to-face time. Call that old friend. Send a message to someone you’ve been thinking about. You never know — it might be exactly the medicine you need.
Mothersense and Miscellaneous 