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My Late Mom and I Shared a Christmas Hershey’s Tradition – She Died This Year, but It Led Me to a Truth I Never Expected
For my entire life, my mother and I shared one perfect pre-Christmas tradition every December 20th.
We would divide the chocolate, sip coffee, and take our traditional selfie.
Every single year. Same location. Same candy. Same ridiculous grins as we pretended we weren’t freezing our faces off.
My mother and I shared
one perfect pre-Christmas tradition.
I had photos going back to when I was six years old.
Me with gap teeth and a terrible haircut.
Me as a sullen teenager who thought the tradition was stupid but showed up anyway.
Me as an adult who’d finally understood what my mother had known all along. That consistency matters. That showing up matters.
I had photos going back
to when I was six years old.
She shook her head slowly.
“You’ll go without me. Traditions matter. They carry us when we don’t know what comes next.”
I swallowed hard. “We’ll go together next year.”
She didn’t answer that. Just looked at me with those too-calm eyes — a look that said she knew something I wasn’t ready to accept yet.
Instead, she said softly, “Promise me you’ll go. Even if it hurts.”
I nodded. “I promise.”
She exhaled, like she’d been holding something in for a very long time.
I wanted to ask her what she meant, but I didn’t. Because asking meant admitting she was dying. And I wasn’t ready for that.
Two weeks later, she was gone. Cancer, swift and brutal.
I buried her in October.
Two weeks later,
she was gone.
By December, the world felt like it was falling apart without her.
Everything reminded me of her.
People kept telling me it would get easier and that grief softened with time, but how much time would it take?
I’d been avoiding the grocery store near the park where we always bought the chocolate, but the date of our ritual was drawing closer each day, and I’d made a promise.
The date of our ritual
was drawing closer each day,
and I’d made a promise.
On the 20th, I couldn’t avoid it anymore.
The promise sat in my chest like a stone. Mom had asked so little of me in those final days. How could I refuse her this?
But I can’t do this without her. The thought circled my brain like a vulture as I entered the grocery store. What was the point? Who was I keeping the tradition for?
Then muscle memory took over.
Muscle memory
took over.
I automatically grabbed the chocolate, and then two coffees.
My body knew what December 20th meant, even if my heart was still catching up.
The walk to the park felt longer than usual. Colder. I kept expecting to hear her voice beside me, making some observation about the weather or pointing out Christmas lights she liked.
When I reached the bench, I froze.
When I reached the bench,
I froze.
Someone was sitting there.
A man, shivering in the cold. He wore a thin jacket that looked like it had seen better days. Maybe better years.
His eyes were bloodshot with dark circles underneath.
But what caught my attention was the giant Hershey’s bar in his lap.
When he saw me, his expression crumpled with sheer relief.
What caught my attention
was the giant Hershey’s bar
in his lap.
“Thank God,” he whispered.
