First Christmas Without Dad

January 1, 2016

The Krumpos Christmas was at Steven and Debbie’s. January 1st — we always did it late, after everyone had done their other families, their in-laws, their obligations. The Krumpos side got whatever day was left, and we were fine with that.

This was our first Christmas without Dad.

Everyone was there. Aunts, uncles, cousins. Jojo came, and I was glad — I wanted her to know my family, to see where I came from, to be part of it. We ate and talked and it felt almost normal, the way family gatherings can feel normal even when someone is missing, because the food is the same and the house smells the same and the cousins are still loud.

Then someone suggested we go around the room and share our favorite memory of him.

I don’t remember who started. I remember the room getting quiet. I remember people looking at their hands. And then someone talked, and someone else talked, and the stories came — funny ones, small ones, the kind that don’t make sense to anyone outside the family. The time he did this. The way he always said that. His hands. His stubbornness. His quiet way of showing up.

There were a lot of tears. Not the kind that shut people down — the kind that open them up. People cried and then laughed and then cried again, and it felt so good to do that together. To say his name out loud in a room full of people who loved him and hear it echo back in a dozen different versions. He was a different person to each of us, and every version was true.

I think it was good for Jojo to see that. To see how my family grieves — not by avoiding it but by sitting in it together, telling stories until the stories do the work.

We drove home that night and the holidays were finally over. I’d done every event. Every gathering. I hadn’t missed a single one. I was exhausted in the way you’re exhausted after something that cost you everything and gave you everything back.

Now we could finally rest.