When you have lost someone you love – in my case, my wonderful daughter, Laura, who died from brain cancer earlier this year aged 23 – Christmas, I have learned, has its own muscle memory.
We do things without thinking: adding two Chocolate Oranges to the weekly shop to give as stocking fillers to Laura and her sister Gracie, 22; then two multipacks of knickers, a present for each daughter, just the kind they like, keeping tally of what I’ve spent on each of them to make sure that things will be roughly ‘even stevens’ come Christmas morning.
I haven’t bought any Christmas cards yet because, for 22 years, I’ve sent best wishes from four of us and my pen can’t get used to writing just three names. Should I include her anyway? Or is that weird, does it look like I haven’t accepted her death or that I’m a bit ghoulish?
This week is particularly difficult for us: Laura would have turned 24 this Saturday and so my husband Mark, Gracie and I face two milestones within the same painful week: a week where it feels like the world around us is listening to non-stop Michael Bublé, partying and gathering and everything is merry and bright.
Even seven months after she died, Laura is still such a part of our lives. But I’m having to relearn how to do Christmas, because now I only have one child. And thousands of other people – parents, siblings, grandparents, children who have an empty chair at their table this Christmas, maybe for the first time – know how very difficult that is.
Laura was bright and independent, determined and ambitious. She’d made a 10-year life plan before even leaving primary school and, when she was diagnosed with a deadly glioblastoma in 2018 and began chemo and radiotherapy, she made a bucket list which, despite her illness, she grew, fulfilled, then grew some more: safari in South Africa and watching Saturday Night Live in New York, she met Michelle Obama, panned for gold, drove a monster truck and a Tube train and graduated university with a 2:1 in PPE.
Hundreds of thousands of strangers followed her story – and ours – on social media and through the news, awed by Laura’s remarkable, positive attitude and diligent work campaigning for a cure. In some part, it was thanks, also, to our friend, the comedian Peter Kay, who used his comedy to fundraise for Laura’s treatment and, after her death, donated money in her name.
This time last year, after Laura’s fourth craniotomy (an operation removing part of the skull to access the brain), we had brought our family Christmas forward a few weeks fearing she would not make 25 December. We had the biggest, most glorious celebration but she did make her birthday on the 23rd, and Christmas too – and she made six months more. Then, in May, she closed her eyes, with the three of us by her side.
The tweet announcing her death was seen by 10 million people and the beautiful messages of condolence from thousands of strangers helped carry us through each day.
Now, just as I cannot bring myself to sign our Christmas cards from three people, I imagine other people’s pens hovering over their cards to us: We can hardly wish them a merry Christmas when they’re grieving. Keep it neutral, just best wishes maybe?
Everyone has their own rituals at this time of year. For us, it was a Christmas Eve cinema trip to see It’s a Wonderful Life, the girls opening presents on Christmas morning, dragging upstairs their red Santa sacks with their names in gold letters, waking up a little later every year and leaving a tumbleweed of red and gold wrapping as they unwrapped presents on our bedroom floor. They’d watch Flushed Away and eat chocolate for breakfast. We just can’t do these things without Laura and I don’t have the heart to forge new traditions. I haven’t worked out how to make Christmas morning bearable for Gracie.
Every year, the girls decorated the tree together while Elf was on TV in the background. They put up paper decorations crafted in primary school with patchy glitter and bedraggled feathers; baubles with Baby’s first Christmas written on them, personalised angels, handmade ornaments with Laura’s careful writing on the back and two little snowmen, blue for Laura, red for Gracie.
This year, we have put the tree up, with fairy lights to bring some light into a home that feels especially dark at the moment. But the sentimental decorations have stayed in the box: just opening it would feel like knocking the scab off a slow-healing wound. I’m honestly not sure if I can stomach it, and anyway, the low table on which we stand the Christmas tree now displays the wooden box containing Laura’s ashes.
On Monday, we will cook a turkey, but I fear that it will be a matter of going through the motions and simply doing our best to make it through the day. How many other people will be feeling this way?
I’ve tried to take a leaf out of Laura’s book and keeping busy, in the run up, is definitely helping. For the third year now, we’re organising Laura’s big Boxing Day charity event for struggling families, which we host near home, in Burnley. We’ll be making Christmas dinner for 200 and I have all their presents to buy and wrap. It’s become so important to us and I have to remind myself of Laura’s reason for starting it and of her legacy of kindness: that however tough life feels for us, everyone has their own challenges, whether that’s grief, loneliness or financial difficulties. We’re far from the only ones with broken hearts.
Spending time with my little nephew and niece helps too: there’s little time for thinking when you’re playing princesses with a four-year-old. And streaming services, like Netflix, have become our friend – no sentimental Christmas adverts to set me off and no chance of being emotionally ambushed by sad festive films.
The truth is grief is like a mythical doorway that, once crossed, ensures nothing is ever the same again. Even with the best will in the world and endless amounts of preparation, I couldn’t have imagined how grim things would feel until I was on the other side. Now I know.
I knew Christmas would be hard and, when I think about it, I’ve probably been in brace position for it since Halloween. But there have been so many things that have taken my breath away, taken me by surprise. At the weekend, I attended my mum’s choir concert and, to my horror, as soon as the singing began I was back at every school concert and nativity. I sobbed uncontrollably throughout. And we certainly can’t be the only family who has walked out of the shops, overwhelmed by the sound of Christmas songs.
If you have grieving friends, check on them this week. Send them cards and write to them, honestly and kindly. Let them know it’s OK to do Christmas differently but remember them nonetheless – and don’t be all too surprised if they hibernate until all the tinsel has been safely packed away and they’re ready, or able, to try again next year.
To donate to the Be More Laura foundation visit justgiving.com/Bemorelaurafoundation
As told to Deborah Linton