On December 24th, 2008 I was almost 21 and drinking wine at my Grandma’s house with my family. We were having a good time. I don’t really talk to that side of the family anymore though. I got a phone call from my best friend, Kyle. I joking let my uncle answer. Kyle asked to talk to me. He sounded angry.
The next few words he said were like a a fucking nuclear bomb that seared my fucking brain for life. He said, “NineMileTower, Steve died (in Iraq). A bridge gave out, his hummer flipped, and he drowned.”
That was in 2008. I’m 37 now. I have two beautiful girls and an amazing wife. I think of Steve all the time. I ask myself, “Why do I deserve these amazing kids, wife and life, and he had to die?”
I fucking hate Christmas. I hate the stupid music. I hate fake bullshit decorations. I hate that I’m supposed to pretend that every Christmas it doesn’t fucking kill me that he isn’t here. I’m here enjoying my kids and their holiday and he’s dead.
I fucking hate Christmas.
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It’s crazy how just a few words can rock your whole world. I’ll never forget the minutes after I learned my brother killer himself. It fucking sucks, but nearly every one of us is going to go through that experience. We are all going to lose those close to us unless we’re the first to go. Momento mori.
I’m sorry you’re having a tough time. Make sure to keep your mental health as the top priority. You can always explain later.
Hey man, my wife got two all-expense paid vacations to Iraq in 06 and 09 (she’s a lifer so she’s still in). She has lost some folk and it hits her hard. I’m just a civilian, and can’t fully fathom all you went through, but I’m grateful to you.
I will tell you this, you’re buddy Steve would not want you to be miserable at all, and especially at the holidays. I know enough Soldiers to know exactly what he’d be telling you.
Always remember your friend. But give yourself permission to enjoy the holidays.
Instead of hating Christmas, you should hate the people that sent your friend to Iraq to die for absolutely nothing.
I do. But there’s literally nothing I can do with that hate.
Luigi.
You’re suggesting I kill someone. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Those people aren’t visibly stamped on his psyche, the Christmas stuff is a trigger
You don’t hate christmas, you hate that christmas reminds you of the loss of your friend.
You’re not “supposed to pretend that it doesn’t kill you that” your friend isnt there. It sounds like you’ve learnt a horrible toxic idea that men aren’t allowed to be emotional or that crying or being sad is weak, or that you have to bottle this up.
You need to allow yourself to grieve. I can understand hiding this from young children, but that doesn’t mean bottling it up entirely. Tall to your wife. Think about ways you could express and release this each year - maybe set a day aside to remember him and celebrate him with other friends?
And maybe think about therapy in the new year - you need to learn how to process and express how you feel, not bottle it up and let it eat your up with resentment and hate. It’s misdirected and is harming you and potentially your loved ones each year.
Would your friend want you to remember him by being miserable and resentful during the holidays? Or would he want you to remember the good times and share why you loved him and missed him with other people so they can know what a great guy he was?
I call bs in the “you’re not allowed to be emotional” you can repeat that all the times you want, but as a man, ESPECIALLY as a family man, you can’t be emotional. You’re the rock of the family and society stomps on weak men.
“Who cares what society thinks!” Unless you live in the woods or middle of nowhere you should care, the way people treat you and “use you” depends of how strong you look. That affects even the way they look at your family.
ESPECIALLY as a family man, you can’t be emotional. You’re the rock of the family and society stomps on weak men.
As a family man, I say fuck that toxic masculinity bullshit. We can improve our society. I’m not going to teach my kid emotions are bad. Sure, there are times to keep them in check, but it’s really unhealthy to just ignore your feelings.
Having the courage to talk about your own feelings is a sign of strength. Letting others control your life is weak.
I have definitely regretted talking openly about my feelings with a partner. It damaged the relationship because she was frustrated and not very understanding.
If your partner doesn’t properly value your feelings and doesn’t support you in your vulnerable moments, that is a bad sign for the relationship.
The point is many women are also impacted by toxic masculinity and will not positively receive their guy opening up / crying.
It’s not just a “be yourself dude” dynamic for many, many men.
For better or worse everyone in their orbit expects a certain behavior
That relationship is over but that wasn’t the reason it ended. My point is that my willingness to share my feelings wasn’t seen as a sign of strength and I wasn’t supported for doing so. The relationship actually worked better for quite a while after that when I learned to take care of my own feelings (as I do now as a single person).
I think we as a society idealize one type of relationship where your partner is everything to you: lover, best friend, therapist, mentor, tennis partner… It’s not realistic and I think it’s a major reason so few relationships succeed nowadays. Most people are simply not equipped to be all those things for another person.
strongly describes how most women treat men.
I don’ thind it matters who you talk to. I think that if noone in your life wants to listen or talk about how you feel, then you should get some new people in your life who will.
You can’t get a new family
I’ve spent many hours on the therapist’s couch and in group therapy. They’ve taught me mindfulness strategies that work on processing how I feel. This has made life dramatically simpler for me. The hard part in life for me now is just the one that’s always been hard: food, rent, bills. As for all other feelings? I know what I want and what to do about it. I’m very much at peace.
That’s rough.
My best buddy died 20ish years ago, fell asleep at the wheel on the highway maybe 1km before his exit. There’s no rhyme or reason to this shit, he certainly didn’t deserve to die anymore than I deserve to live.
Yet here we are, and they aren’t.
When it gets harder, I tell myself to enjoy these things; he would if he was here.
Hey, I won’t pretend this actually works much, but it’s still nice to remind myself for a fleeting moment that he wouldn’t want me to stay in this gloomy mood.Hey man, I’m sorry this is a rough time for you. But maybe you’re looking at Christmas all wrong.
The origin of Christmas wasn’t anything to do with the birth of Christ, but was a way for humans to get through the literal darkest time of the year. This is the moment when the natural world throws all it had against us and takes away one of the things that we require to be happy (sunlight). Society doesn’t do much, if anything, for summer solstice because most people are in a good mood. But we sure as hell do for winter solstice because, before modern society, shit was about to get rough.
I also have to face a lot of loss during this time as well. My mom died on Dec 19th 2020, and my brother overdosed and died 4 days later. Then a year later my dad died on Dec 30th. This time of year is tough for me too. And I also don’t really deserve my amazing wife and kids either. But they sure as hell don’t deserve a sad sack of a father/husband.
Therapy helps a lot with this. It can be hard to find the words to talk about this with the people you love so it can be easier with a third party. Your family deserves you to be there for them and to be legitimately happy.
I hope you find peace and can put the past behind you.
- A rando on the internet
I’m sorry for your losses and thank you for your kind words.
You are amazing, thank you.
Sorry this time of year is tough on you. I was last deployed to Iraq in 2006, so before Steve but I’m sorry for your loss. We all grieve in our own way. Just make sure you let it out.
I lost Sgt Perez on one of my deployments. He was a good dude. He said he messed up early in his career but would never explain the details. I guess he would have been picking up a promotion if he didn’t have that bad paperwork. Great NCO. He looked after us. He had 3 kids and a wife. 2 of the kids was with his current wife. He was out walking around base at night when some rockets were shot at the base. He got some sharpnel when it impacted a building and didn’t make it.
I try to live my life in memory of the lost loved ones. They aren’t here anymore to enjoy life, so I try to enjoy it for them. Christmas can be corny and sound torture with all the songs, but some parts are enjoyable.
On another note, you should never drop the news like this on a holiday/celebration.
In particular when someone has passed, nothing is going to change by time, so the timeline to spread the news is largely irrelevant.
I’m sorry you lost someone you cared about so much. For whatever reason grief isnt looked at as serious mental anguish. It hurts to lose someone. It hurts so goddamn much and I’m sorry you are suffering.
And you’re allowed to hate Christmas. No one has to enjoy every holiday. There’s no law requiring you to like it. You’re not a bad person, and it’s perfectly reasonable to feel the way you do.
I fucking hate Christmas too. For similar reasons to yours. My friend was murdered many years ago in December and I still hate Christmas. So at the very least you aren’t alone, not that it takes the pain away or anything.
Remember, It’s okay to not be okay and to not participate if it’s negatively effecting you. Do what you need to do to survive the holidays. You matter too. Your pain is real, and self care is more important now than ever. I don’t care how cheesy or cringe I sound because it’s true. Please be kind to yourself.
Somehow the Christmas movie Jack Frost came up in conversation this week. (Well, the family friendly one…)
It sort of deals with a similar theme, except of course that the christmas-deceased father was reincarnated, sort of, for a time; to help the family heal.
I don’t know if watching it would help in any way. It might just make you more angry. It did help us in some strange way when my partner was dying of cancer.
Sorry for your loss. It never leaves you.
Sending a virtual cyber hug your way. I’m a bit the same with Thanksgiving. Feeling a loss during a “cheery happy time” blows. Not too much else I can say. I hope you get through it.
If you don’t mind me asking, what happened on Thanksgiving?
Short story. Favorite aunt, cancer. Still miss her, so many years later.
Different person, but I also have a Thanksgiving story. My ex fiancee broke up with me on Thanksgiving from the way back from her family celebration because I’m autistic. This came right after the news about RTO that pushed out some of my closest friends and fellow organizers.
Thank you. It odd how it gets harder the happier I get.
Intended in the most compassionate way possible: that sucks.
Hopefully one day, you’ll be able disassociate when you heard about Steve from the anger about why.
I mean that with honest good intent, sorry if it sounds off.
I appreciate you. There’s nothing you could say that could hurt me as much as the loss. The anger will always be there, but it does get better. I understand as I get older that I’ll be er truly understand why.
To live is to suffer. One way or another.
Steve sounds like the kind of person who would be every bit proud of you, even posthumously. He was there for his people, after all.
He was a jackass. He was obnoxious. He was at times annoying. He was always there. He listened when no one else did. He cared like no one else does. I love him and I miss him.
You’ve got the right to hate it all. Absolutely. There is no deserving anything.
But you’ve got what you’ve got. There is no sense to any of it. Christmas will come at you again and again and again for the rest of your life.
I hope that you make some peace with it for Steve. Give Steve all the best Christmas that you can every year. Give a faire holiday to your family. Give them to your friends. Give them to strangers.
And eventually I hope that you can give yourself a fine and cozy Christmas, too.
We are at the darkest time of our year together. I hope that someday you can find some light for a Merry Christmas.
Steve would be happy for you, and proud of the life you built. Xmas is bullshit but the kids and low IQ normies let them enjoy it. Hang in there buddy you ain’t alone.
Thank you. I appreciate you.
