Grief and Chocolate

I haven't posted in over a week because I've been going through a rough patch as of late. As we get further into the holiday season, I'm not able to control my emotions as much as I'd like. Shed a few tears at church on Sunday - not that unusual. But, crying at the office is taboo. I broke down and cried at the office yesterday. Suppose all the stresses from work in addition to everything else just bubbled over and hit me at the wrong time. Thank goodness I have caring cubicle mates who understand. Just don't like showing that particular emotion at the office since it can be and will be taken the wrong way by certain managers.

No matter how I try to handle it, I have to be honest with myself that Christmas IS going to be rough. Michael always loved Christmas and celebrated it with gusto. But, I was reading somewhere that for a person who has experienced a recent loss, the anticipation of the holiday often is worse than the holiday itself. After all, it's only ONE day of the whole year we're talking about folks.

Trying my best to make Christmas a good one for my family - most of the presents are purchased. Started to get the house decorations put out last night and I found the oddest thing.

Remember how I found an English chocolate bar hidden behind the bread box after Michael died? When I was taking the stockings out of their storage box, one of them was heavy - something was still in it from last year. In the toe of Andrea's stocking was another one of those English chocolate bars!

It's not like either of my children to forget about a gift. Or for me to overlook a bar of chocolate when packing away the stockings for the year. In some small, stupid way I'm taking this Yorkie chocolate as a sign from Michael that somehow, someway he's still caring for us.

Take heart, I will get back to blogging about my quilting activities soon.

Love ya,
Cathy