I wrote the following two years ago in a longer post on Christmas Day 2004 . I posted it last year on the Estrangements blog. I can’t improve on it. So here it is once more:

About Christmas …. it seems almost inappropriate to wish those
who come here looking for answers a Merry Christmas. If you have come
here to find a way to resolve an estrangement and you’re miserable over
being estranged, then the last thing I’d think you’d want to hear is a
greeting of Merry Christmas when you are feeling the least merry that
you’ve ever felt. Christmas may have been torture. The entire season
may have been just one hell of a day after another. Been there, done
that too. A good grim "bah humbug" might be something you’d rather hear.

So … rather than wish you a Merry Christmas … I will offer
you a Get Well card. I hope that you do Get Well and someday find
yourself able to enjoy the greeting of Merry Christmas again. I wish
you the ability to smile. to get up in the morning with no tears, the
freedom to spend most of a day thinking of whatever you’d like to think
about rather than this misery of being estranged, the joy of being able
to appreciate the sun, good friends, the fact that you’re alive. I wish
you the miracle of waking some day and later thinking with surprise
about how you didn’t wake up thinking about your estrangement and you
can’t remember how long it has been since you thought about being
estranged. I wish you relief from your pain, healing from your loss,
and the ability to feel joy once again.

No, I don’t have the answer that you may have come here to find
but I promise you that there is healing whether you find the answer or
not. Eventually. It takes time. Have faith and hang in there!

Ginny