It’s only been six months, but it already feels like whole eras have passed without mom. And I’m not handling it with grace or wisdom or any of that inspirational-poster nonsense. I’m handling it exactly how I always feared I would: badly. Sloppy. Off-balance. Like someone cut out the centre of my life and just expected me to keep walking straight.

I was always a momma’s boy and I never pretended otherwise. We were close in a way that actually meant something — road trips, mysteries on TV, little traditions that made the world feel steady. When I lived abroad, she was the Sunday phone call. When I struggled, she was the voice I dialed without thinking. When I came back to Toronto with my daughter, she stepped up instantly. She wanted to be involved. She loved being involved. And she didn’t just fill roles — she showed up with her whole chest every single time.

This Christmas is going to be the first one without her, and the weight of that hasn’t fully settled yet. My brother and his wife are spending the holidays in Europe with her family, and I’m not mad — it’s been a long time for them. But that doesn’t make the quiet any easier. A friend invited me and my daughter over to his mom’s place for brunch on Christmas Eve, and thank God for that, because otherwise it would just be me pacing the house trying not to fall apart in front of my kid.

Christmas mattered in my family. It wasn’t just a day; it was the season. The tree. The lights. The music. The same decorations pulled out year after year. The kitchen busy from morning to night. The living room glowing in a way that made everyone’s face look a little softer. Even the old catalogues — Eaton’s, Simpson’s, Sears — felt like they were part of the ritual. We had our spots. We had our rhythms. That kind of peace doesn’t come back easily.

Over the years, the people who held those memories together started leaving — my grandfather, my cousin, my uncle, my grandmother, my dad. And now my mom. And suddenly the list of who’s missing is longer than the list of who’s left. This year it’ll just be me and my daughter, and that’s the reality. She’ll get the tree, a few presents, the attempts at the old recipes. But the big, loud, warm Christmases we used to know — they’re gone. There’s no point pretending otherwise.

Something new will come, eventually. That’s what life does. But when it comes to Christmas, I’m not interested in pretending that this “new chapter” is some inspirational upgrade. It’s not. It’s the budget version of what came before. It’s change, but it’s not growth. It’s short change — the kind life hands out whether you asked for it or not.