Coping with Holidays

"Holidays are time spent with loved ones" was imprinted on our psyche from a young age. Holidays mark the passage of time in our lives. They are part of the milestones we share with each other and they generally represent time spent with family. They bring meaning to certain days and we bring much meaning back to them. But since holidays are for being with those we love the most, how on earth can anyone be expected to cope with them when a loved one has died? For many people, this is the hardest part of grieving, when we miss our loved ones even more than usual.

How can you celebrate togetherness when there is none? When you have lost someone special, your world losses its celebratory qualities. Holidays only magnify the loss. The sadness feels sadder and the loneliness goes deeper. The need for support may be the greatest during the holidays. Pretending you don’t hurt and or it is not a harder time of the year is just not the truth for you. If it wasn’t harder you probably wouldn’t be here. You can and will get through the holidays. Rather then avoiding the feelings of grief, lean into them. Its not really the grief you want to avoid it is the pain. Grief is the way of the pain. There are a number of ways to incorporate your loved one and your loss into the holidays.

Mother and Fathers Day

Mother and Fathers Day are often thought of as an invisible sad day of mourning while many people are rushing around trying to get that perfect gift or make sure they remember to send mom / dad a card. There are over one hundred million Americans that for them, this is a sad day. Either because they have a mother or father who has died or a child has died.

Tips

Find ways to honor and remember your mother/ father or both. Think of ways to honor your child.

• Light a candle
• Say a prayer
• Donate time or money in their name.
• Do something you loved to do together on that day.

It isn’t has important how you remember, you honor them by the fact that you remember.

Valentines Day

Valentines Day is a day to honor our spouse, girlfriend / boyfriend or any one we are romantically involved with in the present. The past can represent a hole in your heart where your loved one used to be.

Tips

• Write a love letter
• Smile a smile for them
• Light a red candle
• Tell someone about them.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, New Years

These are the biggest and usually most challenging of all.

Tips

Have a Plan A/Plan B - Plan A is you go to the Thanksgiving, Christmas day or Christmas Eve dinner with family and friends. If it doesn’t feel right have your plane B ready. Plan B may be a movie you both like or a photo album to look through or a special place you went to together. Many people find that when they have plan B in place, just knowing it is there is enough.

Cancel the holiday all together. Yes, you can cancel the holiday. If you are going through the motions and feeling nothing, cancel them. Take a year off. They will come around again.

Give the loss a place. Have everyone share a story at the dinner table. It doesn’t have to be morbid. It can be a funny story of a loved one. Or everyone tells a favorite Christmas story. If the loss is there, give it a voice.

Just Remember

Holidays are clearly some of the roughest terrain we navigate after a loss. The ways we handle them are as individual as we are. What is vitally important is that we be present for the loss in whatever form the holidays do or don’t take. These holidays are part of the journey to be felt fully. They are usually very sad, but sometimes we may catch ourselves doing okay, and we may even have a brief moment of laughter. Whatever you experience, just remember that sadness is allowed because death, as they say, doesn’t take a holiday.

Even without grief, our friends and relatives often think they know how our holidays should look, what the family should and shouldn’t do. Now more than ever, be gentle with yourself. Don’t do more than you want, and don’t do anything that does not serve your soul and your loss.