Navigating Grief during the Holidays

In just a few short days the radio stations will begin playing jolly, cheerful, holiday music. The stores are already beginning to fill with this year’s holiday decor. Bakers are baking with pumpkin spice; cooks are gathering their holiday favorites and kids are writing their Christmas list. If your family is anything like mine, they have already started planning Thanksgiving. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Christmas will be planned. The pressure of showing up and being present all comes too fast. All the while inside we may be kicking and screaming, wishing we could avoid the holiday fair all together.

The presence of grief during the holidays can cause one to be uncomfortable and let’s be honest, dysregulated with feelings of loneliness, sadness, depression, anxiety and yearning. Although when looking around, you may feel like you’re the “only one”, oddly enough, you are not alone in this experience. As I draft this letter to you, my heart is heavy as I prepare to celebrate my 47th birthday for the first time without my grandmother Charlene. Her birthday is just 6 days before mine and she would have been 81. Celebrating when life has been lost seems so cruel at times. You may feel as though you are moving on without them, and that doesn’t seem fair. You are often filled with sweet memories of what you would have been doing, what they would be making/buying, and how that experience made you feel so warm and fuzzy inside. Maybe your experiences weren’t the sweetest, but you will miss the traditions and moments shared. This too is also very normal. We spend our lives loving and having experiences, death does not erase the love experience.

While our hearts may hurt, and our eyes may weep I encourage you to enter the season with this in mind:

1. Cry, laugh, scream if you feel it. Experience those natural emotions. No need to hide them!
2. New traditions are okay, and keeping the old ones is ok too.
3. Let people love you but tell them how you want to be loved.
4. Say “Yes” to the engagements that feel right, say “No” to those that don’t.
5. Keep your loved one’s present by sharing your loved experiences with others.
6. Light a candle, hold a moment of silence at your gathering.
7. If you desire to be alone, that’s okay, communicate openly and honestly about that desire.
8. Wrap yourself in their clothing items or favorite blanket to feel and smell them close.
9. Pull out the photo books and take look at memory lane, it’s good for the soul.
10. Write them a letter or sit in nature and share out loud how much you miss them.

Whatever you do this holiday season, be true to you. Your truth deserves to be honored.