Entering December
December is here. I can’t really believe it. My heart is extra heavy. Thanksgiving weekend comes to an end. Honestly, thank goodness. I feel hungover, and not the I had so much fun type of hungover. Hungover from the sheer exhaustion of trying to survive the days. It’s now December and I desperately long for Jason’s presence in my life. I just want my life back, and my husband. I’m holding onto the joy of last year’s Christmas season with Jason. October and November were incredibly trying months for us. With the reoccurrence of Jason’s cancer in mid October, followed by two separate 10 day hospital stays before Thanksgiving, it felt like we were just trying to survive the hellfire. We would roll into early December to be lifted by the most joyous news, Jason’s treatment was working. I remember that morning so vividly. It was December 3rd, Jason received a message from his doctor regarding his blood work, that had been taken the day before Thanksgiving, but the results were delayed due to the holiday. He said, “the Tumor Marker (CEA) is starting to decline, suggesting the immunotherapy is starting to work!”. It was early, maybe just after 6am, we were both up in the family room, the Christmas tree lights were on, when Jason read that message in his portal. I collapsed next to him and sobbed, happy tears. Relief. We both cried and hugged. Absolute utter joy. It was the news we’d anxiously been waiting for, after over 6 weeks of excruciating hell. It was working. I think in that moment, we’d both found the hope and belief we’d make it out of this. I know I did. Neither of us knew the crushing, devastating, and heartbreaking journey that lay on the other side. But that hope and joy allowed us to truly embrace Christmas 2024, not once thinking it would be Jason’s last.
Last year Jason and I started looking at houses, we dreamed of building our family and were eagerly looking to buy a bigger home. Over the holiday season we popped around to a few different places. We were dreaming of the Christmas tree we’d set up and our kids standing over the landing on Christmas morning looking down. Jason said that one reminded him so much of his childhood home. We kept dreaming despite his cancer. Holding onto the hope that we’d make it and get the life we originally planned and so desperately wanted. I remember last season getting sappy putting up Christmas decorations, thinking if we bought a home, it would be our last Christmas at our perfect little home, the home we started our life in. I said “it’s crazy to think this could be our last Christmas here.” I never imagined a world where our last Christmas here would be because cancer would steal my perfect husband. I never imagined the stunning engraved and matching white quilted stockings I worked so hard to find when we got engaged would only see two seasons of life with Jason here. I never imagined 2024 would be the last year we’d set up our little villages together, a tradition Jason wanted to start the year I met him. Despite him feeling like shit from the treatment kicking his ass, we turned on the music and made the Christmas drink anyways. Not once did I think the traditions we were dreaming up for when we had our babies would never be put into action. The season was filled with hope and joy, faith that we would make it. Faith that God had finally provided. Maybe that’s a blessing, even though unless you’ve been apart of such a tragedy, I don’t think you can truly understand how fucking devastating it is to go from that hope to the hell that 2025 brought. But maybe just maybe the hope allowed us to fully embrace last year’s Christmas season. Even amongst the bad of last year, it felt like we were ending 2024 and turning a new leaf. I never thought of last year’s Christmas as Jason’s last. I celebrated it like it was the beginning. I think Jason did too, he was happy, and I mean truly happy. He went all out, he couldn’t contain his excitement. For him, it was about the giving and the loving those who had shown up for him in the last year. He bought so many presents I remember thinking and saying, “Jason! You need to stop buying things!” But he didn’t want to, he wanted to give. I’d be working and he’d go out and every single time he’d come back with more gifts! He brought so much joy. He even bought himself so many things and wrote to Jason from Santa and it made us all giggle. It was simple, he just wanted to show how loved he felt. There was nothing big or fancy, just love. It was just us and my family. He was the happiest he had ever been. He said it himself, it’s the best Christmas he could remember. I think about how in awe he was how generous my parents were to him, it was clear he had never experienced that type of stringless generosity before. But he deserved the love he gave and it was so clear that last Christmas he received just that. It wasn’t about the presents but what they represented. He had found what he’d been looking his entire life for. A wife and extended family who loved him, unconditionally. He knew he finally had it, and he showed his appreciation through giving. It was a beautiful Christmas. I am thankful for the hope that started off our season, even though I sit here now in absolute despair, longing for the life I dreamed, and most of all, Jason. The hope of it all carried us through, and if it had to be Jason’s last, I guess I’m glad for that false hope, because it gave Jason his best Christmas he could remember and mine too.
