Translation: Letter to Grandfather Frost. Dear Grandfather Frost, I know you don’t exist and New Years has not been a holiday for me for a long time. Dad has left but New Year’s Day stayed. This seems to be unfair but I have gotten used to it. I want to try to remember that New Years is a holiday. All I want is a little bit snow this cold night.
So it happened that New Year is not my favorite holiday. As it often happens the reasons can be tracked to the family history.
The last few years of my father’s life, who suffered from alcohol addiction, he would get severely intoxicated during holiday season, and five years later he eventually passed away on the Christmas Eve celebrated by Catholics and most of the christian world. The 9 days remembrance dinner fell on New Years Day, making it a remembrance New Years celebration.
Our family was hardly surprised by this fact because dad sincerely loved holidays, so his “decision” to get his family together for a farewell on January 1st was very understandable. He picked a great day for it.
My father’s passing away was sudden and extremely painful for me and my whole family – this event forever changed how I feel about New Years. All these years, I couldn’t think of another holiday that would have been more cruel, cold, and lonely for me.
I had to struggle through pain, darkness and loneliness that came crushing onto me after his death. Thanks to great personal efforts and therapy, I was able to find place for the family history and move on with my adult life. Lonely New Year nights are in the past even though in the back of my mind I am still afraid that the nightmare may repeat. In this project, I reflect on the experience of the emotional trauma from my family and my journey to healing.
