Story Photos
 Photo by Roger Werth Debbi Marcil, whose husband, Gary, died in 2004, cradles grandchildren Fisher Wassell, 2 1/2m and 14-month-old Brooklyn Wassell, while granddaughter D'Nika Garrison lights a candle for her deceased grandfather. |
Little comfort or joy
Tuesday, December 6, 2005 6:27 AM PST
By Cathy Zimmerman
Printable version
E-mail this article"We loved to shop for the kids together," said Debbi Marcil of Kelso.
She and her husband were married 28 years and raised four children. But they didn't just focus on their own kids at Christmas -- the couple helped found the Jumbo Toy Run and collected gifts for poor families for more than 20 years together.
Now he's gone.
"There's a big minus there," she said. "You go shopping by yourself. You cook by yourself."
Marcil, 49, of Kelso, became a widow way before she was ready when her husband, Gary Marcil, died of a massive heart attack in February, 2004.
"He died at 51, I was 47," she said last week. "Sometimes I feel like I'm 107."
A newborn grandchild in California was stillborn this year, and this fall, four of her close friends died, Marcil said.
For support dealing with fresh losses that tear the scab off of past grief, she belongs to a bereavement support group at Community Hospice in Longview, and takes her granddaughter, 11-year-old D'Nika Garrison, to the children's group.
"When we celebrate Thanksgiving, or our birthday, he's never there," D'Nika said of her grandfather.
The holidays cut to the quick for people who are grieving. They will not be able to celebrate in the same ways, and the emotional wallop of the season will worsen their pain.
"Holidays are full of traditions and memories," said Linda Erickson, social worker and bereavement counselor at Community Home Health and Hospice.
"Christmas is the biggest event of the year for many people," Erickson said. "Families come together; hours and days are spent planning for this joyous event."
Especially the first Christmas after the death of a loved one, however, "is not joyous," said Hospice social worker Jenny Murphy. Those who suffer the death of a child are often hit the hardest, she added.
Christmas is so big, so present.
"You can't get away from it," Erickson said. For instance, "You get blind-sided by the music in the stores."
"Music triggers responses and memories," Murphy said.
In bereavement groups she helps lead at Hospice, Murphy said, "a lot of people say to me, 'I wish I could go to bed in the middle of November and wake up in January.' "
For Marcil, the Hospice group offers "a great support group, not just during the holidays but all year. You meet a lot of people who are going through the same thing. You know you are not alone."
Members freely express their misery, find consolation that the things they're doing are not strange, and help each other get through this bittersweet time of year.
"When you're going through grief," Marcil said, "you don't know that what you're feeling is normal."
Only when she joined the bereavement group did she find out that it was not weird to go to bed at night with one of her husband's shirts, she said.
"I looked all over the house for something that would smell like him."
She has not slept on his side of the bed in the months since he died, and she put books there "so there would be some weight."
"We can't have coffee together. We can't eat dinner together."
Gary revved up life in so many ways, there are reminders of him everywhere, Marcil said.
The co-owner of Castle Rock Muffler and Auto Center, Gary had a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a 1933 Ford Victoria that was his pride and joy. "He drove it rain or shine."
They went to Lincoln City every six months in the vintage car, she said. They went out for breakfast; they shared a love of antiquing. "After getting four kids raised, we had a chance to do all the things we couldn't do when they were younger."
A league pool player, Gary Marcil died during a tournament, his wife said.
"I had just walked in," she said. "He went and made a shot, and I talked to him for about two minutes. I turned around and he dropped to the floor. He died doing what he loved."
One of many things he loved, as it turns out.
"He was a wonderful father," Marcil said. "He would run his schedule around the grandkids. He always took Tuesday off to be with Fisher (a baby when his grandfather died), so I could take D'Nika to the library."
As the oldest, D'Nika knew him the longest.
"He spent every weekend with us," the girl said. "We did fun projects. He'd fall asleep on the floor with us."
She still gets teary-eyed talking about him, and keeps a five-dollar bill in her wallet that was among the last cash he carried. In pen and ink, D'Nika wrote on the bill, "Papa Gary. Never ever spend."
At Hospice, "we say, 'The person died, the love didn't,' " said Linda Erickson.
Hospice counselors suggest ways to include the deceased in the holidays. The bereavement groups hold a Christmas candle lighting, for instance. And last month, D'Nika made a Thanksgiving candle arrangement and a Christmas wreath to honor her beloved Papa.
Jenny Murphy's mother died in early December some years ago, she said. "Every year I make the cookies she used to make."
Erickson said you can "bring that person to a special event with you" -- Christmas church service, a wedding -- "by putting their photograph in your purse."
For those who recently lost a loved one, however, none of these things comes easy.
The word bittersweet was made for people grieving during the holidays, Erickson said. "They have to deal with sorrow while they celebrate."
"Some decide to do everything exactly the same way," said Murphy. "Others do everything different. Having kids around can force you to do what you don't feel like doing. And that can be a good thing."
However, Erickson and Murphy said grieving people have a right to be sad, to withdraw, to do whatever it takes to get through the season.
As a grieving relative once told Murphy, "It will be awful, no matter what I do."
Grieving families can start by sitting down and talking about Christmas.
"What's important? What can be put on hold? What can you do differently?" said Erickson. "Come to a compromise."
When Murphy's father died eight years ago in late October, she scaled back the holidays.
"I thought about what we actually love about Christmas, and what we do because other people expect us to do it," she said. "And we only did the things we really wanted to do.
"It helped me that year I was grieving, but actually, figuring out those priorities can help everybody."
Marcil has entered into the spirit more this year, her second Christmas without Gary. And she has stayed involved in the Jumbo Toy Run since Gary's death.
People with fresh grief may feel that they will never enjoy Christmas again, Erickson pointed out.
"I understand what they're feeling," she said. Even if the sadness is muted in the future, "it will always be there."
Ways to Remember
• Local bereavement groups at Community Home Health and Hospice are free and open to all.
Adult groups meet the first and thrid Mondays, the daytime group from 1-2:30 p.m. and the evening one from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
At the close of the Dec. 19 meeting, a candlelighting will be held. All are invited to participate.
For more information on groups for grieving adults and children, call 425-8510.
• The Worldwide Candle Lighting, sponsored by The Compassionate Friends and its nearly 600 U.S. chapters, is held around the globe every year at 7 p.m. local time on the second Sunday in December. The event honors and remembers all children who graced our lives but died too soon. This year, the candlelighting will take place on Dec. 11. All interested people are encouraged to light a candle for one hour, creating a 24-hour wave of light in remembrance of all children who have died, no matter their age or cause of death.
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