Here is an entry from my journal seven years ago when I was going into my fourth Christmas without Donnie.   "The season isn’t filled with joy.  Instead, I’m going against the whole season of joy, fun, lights, social times, classic Christmas movies and eating till I gain ten pounds. There is no sense in trying to make it what it isn’t. With the loss of Donnie there is a missing part of my self and joyfulness is hard to come by. I went on a bus trip, Christmas shopping with some girlfriends and getting out for some fun. On the trip they showed the movie “Mrs. Miracle” which is a Christmas story of a widowed man caught in his grief. I’m sitting there with tears running down my cheeks – it was just too hard to watch and I could so relate to the emptiness he felt. This will be my fourth holiday season (I never realized how long the season is) without my Donnie and I now realize that I have to find my own joy and peace for the holidays."