BlogHer - Grief during the holidays: How to make it through - Comments

Dear Spotoczak

Mata H — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:48:33 -0600

You have every right to your grief for your father-in-law. And sharing that grief with your family probably makes great sense. I don't know your family dynamics, so I cannot speak for your husband and his mother -- but if their love for you is as generous as your obvious love for them, you may want to reconsider letting them know that you need them, too -- or find friends that you can trust to just let you sob your heart out. The holidays will be rough for everyone, and it is OK if they are rough for you as well. Sometimes families just have to take turns holding each other up. It is a great act of love that you are having the holidays at your home when you are grieving. Sometimes, letting people see your true feelings is also an act of love. Your father in law must have been a lovely man to have his passing affect you so deeply. You can always start small -- by just mentioning to your husband that you cried in the store because you miss his Dad, too. Then see where it goes. I will keep you in my prayers.

--Mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Grieving during the Holidays

spotoczak — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:16:21 -0600

Thank you so much for your article. My father-in-law passed away on Nov. 1st and Thanksgiving and Christmas was his favorite holidays. He was also Polish and we had many family traditions associated with being Polish. My problem is that I am having a hard time grieving in front of my husband and mother-in-law because I do not want to make them upset. I feel like I need to be there for them and not the other way around. We always had Thanksgiving at his house. He would make everything. This year we are going to have it at my house. I went to the store today to buy everything and I broke down in the store. What am I to do? My husband and mother-in-law are huring more then me so what right do I have to be this way. Please help. I want to support my family in any way that I can.

Hi Wilma

Mata H — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:40:24 -0600

"we lost how to do grief".....you are so right. It is a communal as well as individual event.

You mentioned that you have no family around. Same here, with the exception of a beloved 85 year old cousin. I have kept many of the traditions of the old days, but I have let time and circumstance shape shift them to today's design. Especially as we age, I think our most important moving-along-in-life developmental task (as in over 40) is to learn how to grieve, or to let go, as a natural art* of living.

*(I had typo'd "art" instead of "part", but now that I look at it, I'll leave it that way.)

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Speedy times, even grief gets only a second

Wilma Ham — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:00:39 -0600

Great to talk about grief at this time of year and giving an explanation on how one can deal with it.
I feel that we lost how to do grief, we either indulge in it and then don't know how to turn it around into something that will celebrate the life of all of us, the living and the dead.

I also love the comment that says that we cling to tradition, irrespective of change.
I like that as again pretending is not going to do anybody any good either.

I don't have any family around to celebrate holidays with.
The first two years were shear agony trying to keep a *tradition* alive that resembled the old times which was of course totally impossible.
All the ingredients were missing.

Once I let go of how Christmas was to be, accepted that it would never be like that ever again, I actualy realized that I was grieving for something I had lost.
Interesting that at first I did not associate grieving with this tye of life situation.

Once I knew I did let go, and I could move on and make it into a totally different tradition.
I also could see that grief deserves attention and talking and thinking about it was worthwhile the effort.

Wilma Ham

www.wilmasblog.com

Windy, thanks

Mata H — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:10:29 -0600

I will hold your family in my prayers this year. Just do what you need to do that helps you and your family get through it as gently as possible. Take care.

--mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Thanks for sharing

windysblog — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:55:55 -0600

Grief is one of the most difficult things I have ever faced in life. The holidays are always a tough time. It was my Dad's favorite day of the year, and so when he died on Christmas Day six years ago, it was almost the perfect day for him, but left us all grieving deeply as the holiday approaches now.

Your words were right on. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think that sometimes we get too wrapped up in how we should act around the holidays (keeping traditions, etc.) that we push through the grief and forget that others in the family are hurting too. Those are the very people who can help us.

My advice is to do what is right for you. Each of us will discover what is right as time goes on. The important thing is not to be stressed about what is the proper way to act through a time when your heart hurts so much it is almost crippling.

Your advice confirms my ideas. There are many resources to help the grieving, and it's okay to need them and utilize them. We don't need to feel guilty about it. We just need to heal.

And the most important thing your blog has demonstrated: we are not alone in grief, even if it feels that way. Others hurt too, and when we share about the pain, it helps.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

thanks, Virginia

Mata H — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:50:01 -0600

Thank you for your kindness.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Thanks, NOfreelunch

Mata H — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:49:19 -0600

The important thing to remember is to honor what gentle actions bring you comfort. Thank you so much for sharing your reaction. It means a lot.

Mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Wonderful advice, Mata

Virginia DeBolt — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:56:16 -0600

Thank you for such thoughtful caring.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Thank you

NOfreelunch — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:54:33 -0600

What a beautiful and thought provoking piece of writing. The description of what you and your dad did at your mom's grave site and to honor her in your home with the extra chair made me tear up. Thanks for giving others who are grieving this sage advice. This is such a good list I can't think of anything to add, only to reiterate what you've suggested.

so true

Mata H — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:32:02 -0600

Right you are -- it isn't as though one can have an identical holiday except for one dear person gone. Trying to make everything seamless is fruitless. It'll never happen. Good point about over-idealizing. That is a such a sad and stuck place in the grief process. Your survival last year by focussing on the kids sounds like it really worked. Focus on others by getting our eyes off our personal pain even if for a moment, helps.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

I think the the biggest thing with traditions is you don't HAVE

Crunchy Carpets — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:06:44 -0600

have it all and all the same as when THOSE people were around...to me this just adds more stress.

I have a friends whose family CLUNG to the christmas the way THEY wanted it...no matter what was going on in the family or which family members had died that year...it made things very hard for all.

It didn't get better for them till they relaxed and just picked the things that made the memories and made new traditions.

We have lost both my inlaws..but they weren't into the holidays....my dh just gets sad that they aren't their for the kids.

Last year we survived christmas just after losing a baby at 26 weeks. But we did a simple christmas for the kids and it made it really nice.

Persepctive and embracing the memories is good..but not getting too maudlin either.

My mom has these false memories of magical christmases with family that never existed....so christmas is always judged by one's that weren't there...

drives me nuts

Look for me at http://crunchycarpets.com or check out the ladies at www.wetcoastwomen.com

Grief during the holidays: How to make it through

Mata H — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:44:45 -0600

The holidays are coming and this is the first set of them without a certain beloved someone in your life. You have mourned the passing of a parent, a grandparent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend or close relative. Someone who used to be a big part of the holiday season died this year. And now the holidays are looming like the crest of a huge ocean wave, threatening to take you and your holiday memories under with it. What do you do? How do you walk that perilous shoreline of grief while everyone around you seems to have an intact family, with everyone alive and happy? And it gets compounded every time you turn on the TV or open a magazine,and see all those other complete family units in technicolor joy, underlining over and over exactly you what you are missing.

Take a deep breath. You are not alone. And there is a way to get through this. It will not be simple, easy or carefree. But you can get through it. And next year will not be as hard as this year. This year, the first year, is the hardest. This year you may be more acutely aware of the person-shaped hole in your holiday. The edges will start to heal, and then you will find ways to move that healing along a bit more every time an occasion comes up.

When you lose someone whom you love, the pain doesn't ever vanish. It can stop being crippling. And it will, if you let it.

Let me share a bit from my own life. My Mom and I were very close. It was a hard-won closeness, so we appreciated it a great deal. Christmas was HER time of year. It was magical for her, and she spent most of the rest of the year planning for it, and deciding how best to keep the ethnic traditions (Polish) of our family. To see her at Christmas was to see pure joy in action. So, the first Christmas without her was awful. It hurt like hell. But I started to learn how to deal with loss and holidays. Here are some ideas from my own experience and the experience of friends. Please, please, chime in with your own, as we can share in order to help folks here.

Here are some hints (in no particular order) about getting through the holidays when grief may be all you see.

1. Do not keep silent.
Find someone or some group with whom you can let down your guard and express your grief. Find those people who will let you cry your eyes out, or who will let you get so angry that you are without that person you loved. Express what is inside. Don't feel that you have to be stoic 24/7.

2. Ask for help.
When my Mom died, I sat down with my father and said "How on earth are we going to get through this Christmas?" And we talked. We made some decisions. We kept some things the same, and changed others. We avoided some things that would hurt. We started some new traditions. Ask your family, your spouse, your children, your pastor for ideas. Involve the family. Help your children tell you what is in their hearts, if they have lost someone.

3. Do what brings genuine comfort, even if it seems odd.
....... a. My mother 's love for Christmas had my father and I bring a decorated tiny Christmas tree to her grave. We set it up with stones so it would not blow down. Mom loved Christmas so much that she would have been delighted that we did that.
....... b. Our tradition is to set an extra chair on Christmas Eve for "the uninvited guest". (Legend has it that Christ walks the streets in the guise of a stranger that night, so if he comes to your door, he should see a place already set.) . We used to always set that up next to Mom, joking that she would be the most enthusiastic companion. The year she passed away, we set up two empty chairs -- one for the guest, one for her. Other family members were glad, and said they had dreaded the thought of her special chair not being there.
....... c. We could not endure doing a whole fancy tree with Mom's favorite ornaments. Instead we got a small one and decorated it with lights and silk flowers, as she loved flowers so much. It was easier to take down, and it did not break our hearts with too much memory.

4. Keep the traditions that have the most meaning for you.
Your loved one would not want you to tear apart your life. It is OK to have a Christmas, a Thanksgiving, a Hanukkah, a Kwanzaa, a New Year that resembles all the ones that you had before. Life and traditions go on.

5. Feel free to start new traditions.
That first Thanksgiving, my father and I agreed to share only fun memories of Mom as part of those things we were most thankful for. There we were, actually laughing. It was a wonderful and grace-filled relief. One friend who lost his wife this year is planning to sit down with his children and decide what special charity they are going to support in her name this year --and they have agreed to support it with money and with volunteer time. They will do this every year. One mother who lost her husband prematurely shares the story of her sons' births with them on Christmas Eve -- not the intimate details, just the story of that day and the joy that she and her husband had. She calls it "my boys' nativity stories". It is a way to bring their father into each holiday.

6. Talk about the absent person
It is fine to share good memories -- or to say "Gee, Dad would have loved this." They may have died, but your love and their love stay around forever.

7. Brace yourself for the wave effect.
You'll be cooking a turkey, doing fine, congratulating yourself about how well you are getting through this when a whiff of pumpkin pie reminds you of Dad, or Grandma, or cousin Albert and whammo -- you are a mass of tears. That's OK. In fact, that is what happens. It is a grief-wave. It will come without warning, and then it will go. It's no sign of how well or badly you are doing. It just happens to everyone. Breath through it -- pray through it -- meditate through it - cry through it. Know it will pass.

8. Know that this is the hardest one.
The first year is like a series of first-times. The first Christmas without. The first Passover without. The first birthday without. The first anniversary without . And on and on. Just live through each one, knowing some will be easier than others. Then plan for the next round, knowing what you know about grief from that first year. Then it will be easier. My Mom died 12 years ago. I will still shed some tears this Christmas, probably when I play her favorite Polish Christmas Carol, Lulajże Jezuniu, but they will be tinged with the sweetness of blessed memory, not with the heart of deepest grief.

9. Help those around you who are also at a loss.
It is a big relief to not be alone in your grief. Saying "what will WE do?" is so much easier than "what will *I* do?" Look around. Lift each other up.

10. If you are a person of faith, lean on your faith
Whether your faith is traditional or not, somewhere it contains something for you to lean on -- if only the belief that you are not alone. For me, it was important to focus on the fact as expressed in my faith, that my Mother may be gone from this plane, but that she has gone on to life beyond it, and that someday we would be together again. It did not make my pain go away, but it reminded me that what we say is "dead" is not lost forever.

11. If you believe in Love, lean on that, too
The most important thing between you and your loved one was -- love. And no one can ever take that from you. All the love that was expressed by the two of you is yours to keep forever. Love is stronger than death. Compared to the power of love, death is trivial.

12. Write your way through it.
Whether you blog it or journal it or type it into filed word docs, get what is inside, outside. This will give you the ability to look back, a few months from now, and see how far you have come. You may even want to write a journal-letter to your departed loved one, telling them in words how much the holidays hurt without them.

Whatever else you do, here is the most important thing -- FORGIVE YOURSELF FOR ANYTHING YOU JUST CANNOT DO. Cut yourself some slack. This year's holiday does not have to be and will not be perfect. There are still aftershocks to the earthquake of grief.

Grief feels so individual, and in many ways it is. But in lots of ways, it is not. Lift your eyes up a moment, and you will see many others who want to help, who have also been through loss. Know that you are in their hearts. If they ask how they can help, tell them. And accept the help when they deliver. None of us can get through life's saddest times alone.

Please, if you have experienced that grief during the holiday feeling -- how did you best cope with it?

So, in that spirit, this year, on my Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve tables, I promise to light a special candle for all you folks in reading this who are figuring out how to deal with loss. And I will say a prayer from my heart that consolation and peace come to comfort you.

--Mata H

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Babbadivy wisely warns against putting your lost loved one on too high pedestal or in too low a ditch, and wisely adds:

But back to the holidays- remember it’s okay to reminisce. Think of the funny times, the happy times, and even the sad times. It’s totally normal for those first holidays without your loved one to be a little sad, a little deflated- even a little angry. Pull together with your family, even if there are problems with things like the division of that person’s property. After a loss, the family you have is more important than ever.

Claudia talks about the stages of grief and describes how she will spend her holiday.

Elaine talks about the loss of a spouse, including through divorce, and says this about the holidays:

During holidays and special times, try not to totally isolate yourself, thereby adding to moments of stress or alienation. Allow family and friends to help you get through difficult times, even if it’s something as simple as picking up your children from school or helping you shop for groceries. You can still be alone with your thoughts to sort through your grief, but it doesn’t hurt to allow others to help absorb some of the heartache during this time of year.

Mata H, CE for Religion and Spirituality, blogs at