I vividly remember enduring the holiday season three years ago after the death of Ilona, who was killed in a car accident in September 2022. I was so broken. The pain was so great, I really thought I was going to die.
There was no joy.
Nothing to celebrate.
What surprised me most during that time was facing the new year. I could not imagine entering a year in which my daughter would not exist. It made me feel sick.
I was moving farther and farther away from Ilona and her presence.
Moving ahead in time without her felt like a betrayal.
I was trying desperately to hold on to her, yet she felt as though she was slipping farther from me. All of this felt so out of control.
I noticed that I had to scroll farther and farther back through the photos on my phone to find the most recent pictures of her. With each swipe, my heart broke seeing the photos of my other children, without their sister.
Entering a new year felt like losing her all over again.
For you, this may be your first turn of the calendar without your loved one. You might be feeling the weight of stepping into a new year without them–the quiet guilt of continuing on while they are no longer here. You may feel that familiar pit in your stomach, the sense that life is moving forward when yours is standing still.
These are not wrong feelings.
You are grieving.
And that is okay.
Over time, this terrain has become more familiar to me. I am learning the rhythms and seasons of grief—not that they are all predictable, but that some seasons return with a certain weight. For New Year’s, we often choose to go away to the beach, creating space to breathe and to remember.
This year, however, something has shifted.
As I turn the page from December 2025 to January 2026, I am trying to see things through a different lens.
With each passing year, I am not only moving farther from Ilona, I am also moving closer to her. Closer to the day when we will be reunited.
This broken world will not last forever.
Death will be defeated.
Tears will cease.
The promise of Christ’s return stands before us.
One day, eternity will break in fully, and there will be no more goodbyes, no more heartache, no more loss.
Will that day be this year? I don’t know.
But I know it is coming.
So even as I scroll further back on my phone to find photos of Ilona, I am also moving forward—toward her, toward all those I love, and toward my Savior.
That will be a day without end.
Until then, I endure.
I turn the calendar page.
I weep a little.
And I hope.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
~1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
~Revelation 21:4
This is the last picture I have on my phone taken with Ilona. It was 4 days before she was taken to heaven. We were at a Gray Havens concert.