By Shaila K. Dewan
The New York Times
Thanksgiving was hard enough. And now there are the dozens of little rituals that make up a Christmas, each one a sugared plum with a bitter center.
So Elizabeth Kovalcin knelt before her fireplace in Hudson, N.H., to hang up stockings labeled with names: one for Rebecca, 4; one for Marina, 1 1/2; and one for herself. But, surveying her work, she realized she would have to put up one more. The one that read "David," the name of her husband, who died on Sept. 11.
"I could not not have it up," she said.
Rebecca, spotting the arrangement, made her change it once more, insisting, "I want Daddy next to me."
Even as the nation seems to crave the warmth of the holiday hearth with a special fervor this year, there are hundreds of homes where gaiety is lacking.
And then, there are the children. For the Cantor Fitzgerald firm alone, 1,300 children lost a parent in the terrorist attack. The Fire Department has counted 607. And hundreds more whose father or mother died in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania have not been tallied.
No effort has been spared to ease the burden for parents going it alone. There have been free tickets to the Harry Potter movie, ice-skating parties and $500 shopping sprees at Toys "R" Us.
But there is nothing that will keep a house from seeming bigger and quieter than it should.
"I’m going through the motions for Christmas," Kovalcin said, echoing a sentiment heard in many recent interviews with newly single parents. "I could care less whether it happens at all."
But for the sake of the girls, it must happen. Kovalcin, whose husband was aboard the first plane that hit the trade center, must even buy a few gifts for herself, so that it will not seem as if Santa has forgotten her.
It is not that all bereaved parents are completely alone. Some have forged closer relationships with their children.
"I’m going shopping with my son for the first time in years," said Tom Heidenberger of Chevy Chase, Md., whose wife, Michele, was a flight attendant on the plane that hit the Pentagon. "My wife pretty much did everything."
Offers of help are plentiful. Melissa Rogan’s sister came to put up Christmas lights on the Rogan home in West Islip, N.Y., and regularly helps with homework.
But there is no one who can be there all the time.
Children, too, can try to minimize their own feelings so as not to upset the parent, said Denise Taylor, the director of the Children’s Aid Society’s grief and loss project. This dual suppression can become a pas de deux on eggshells. "They say, ‘Mom’s not talking about this, so I’m not supposed to talk about this.’ Meanwhile, she’s not talking about it in order to protect the child," Taylor said.
Holidays, with their insistence on cheer, can magnify any aspect of grief, from tears to lack of concentration to depression. This year, they are coming just as the numb shock of the trauma is beginning to give way, for some people, to agony. Last week, one World Trade Center widow killed herself.
Taylor fears the woman may have been the first of many. Not only those who lost a spouse, but those who lost a job, are at risk. Teen-agers are, too. "We have to be really focused on suicide prevention," she said.
"It’s very difficult to say how they are doing," Kazimierz Jakubiak said of his three motherless children, who lost their mother, Maria, in the trade center attack.
"My daughter is, right now, next to me, 18-year-old girl, laying on my lap. And I’m scratching her head," said Jakubiak, whose family lives in Queens.
His daughter, Joanna, said, "We’re strong, and we’ll get through it. It’s easier to think of it when I think of all the happy times that we’ve had," like last summer, when just she and her mother went to Paris.
Keeping busy is important, too, she said. She went back to school on Sept. 12, and has since joined the debate team and the computer club.
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