Holiday Grief
Tracy Lee • April 13, 2020
The holiday season is a time set aside for family and religious traditions. Meaningful activities and gaieties fill our lives and the lives of those we know and love. What happens then, if someone we love dies during this season? In the blink of an eye, our traditional festivities may lose their luster. We may avoid rather than seek our friends, families, and familiar traditions. We may fear our ability to enjoy our holidays ever again. We may fear our capacity to maintain our composure at activities, and we may have lost our energy and desire to participate.
The holidays can be a stressful time of year for various reasons for many people. If you have recently lost a loved one, or if this is the first holiday season you will experience after the loss of a loved one, you may not look at this time of year with gleeful anticipation; you may find that your stress has risen beyond your usual level. Many people who have lost a loved one during this time of year or who are experiencing their first holiday season without their significant loved one find that their anxiety may be causing great discomfort and sadness.
Grieving is difficult any time of the year, but grief during the holidays seems to be especially painful. Over the past years, I have asked many clients for their suggestions and experiences on surviving and overcoming holiday pain. With their permission to share their ideas, I write this article out of respect and with hope that you may find a suggestion that will help you grieve and honor the memory of your loved one. I hope that through these activities, you will gain a sense of comfort and control that will allow you to begin your journey toward recovery.
Recovery Work
The first suggestions are those to help you gain control over the reeling emotions of loss.
Acceptance
You must acknowledge and accept your emotions. You may experience extreme sadness, anger, and frustration. This is normal. Your emotions may be directed toward the decedent, your living friends, and family, or both. These emotions may even be directed at people who have nothing at all to do with you or your life. For instance, you may become quite agitated at the store clerk for no true reason; you may end up being extremely rude to him/her for no true reason. These are normal behaviors under these circumstances. You need to realize that your behavior is grief related and forgive yourself.
Eliminate Stress
You might take measures to eliminate unnecessary stress. If in the past, you were the party host for the most wonderful Christmas party or New Year’s Eve gala, realize that you might need a break from it this year. Perhaps if you are up to it, you could downsize your event, however, forgoing it all together and asking someone else to host this year’s events might be easier on you.
Sharing Love
Grief relief is magnified by sharing love. Grief is brought on by the loss of comfort and love; it, therefore, makes sense that the opposite action of sharing love would reverse or lessen the effects of grief. Sharing your time and holidays with those who love and understand you, may very well decrease your anxiety, and bring the gift of healing into your life.
Remembering
Remembering and celebrating the little things brings great comfort. If you and your loved one traditionally began your holiday season savoring a cup of warm wassail, you may find great comfort within the simple action of embracing warm wassail as the commencement tradition of your season. Identify the things you took for granted as part of your holiday cheer; acknowledge and develop these activities as traditions.
Develop Traditions
Developing new traditions to memorialize your loved one often helps with grief recovery as well.
Candle Lighting
A candle lighting ceremony to symbolize your enduring love for your loved one is a tradition that allows family and friends to participate in commemoration. Candles and lanterns alike, have long withstood the test of time as the traditional commemoration for those who are lost to us.
Stockings
Hanging a Christmas stocking for the decedent and filling it with memorial notes, cherished memories, or sweet holiday cards helps mourners move the decedent from a living person into a loving memory. It assists survivors in the recovery process, and the notes become wonderful treasures as the years pass by.
Ornaments
Creating a memorial ornament is a wonderful activity for children. Photos and special trinkets belonging to the decedent can be incorporated into the ornaments to enhance their beauty and significance. As time passes, these lovely ornaments will become family heirlooms, treasured by those who knew and loved the deceased.
Special Activity
If your loved one enjoyed bombarding everyone with snowballs, a snowball competition would be a wonderful new tradition to celebrate and memorialize your loved one. Maybe he/she enjoyed caroling the neighbors or watching a particular Christmas movie; these activities create enduring traditions in which family members can participate and enjoy in years to come.
Service
The holidays are a great time to volunteer and serve others. Opportunities abound, and the need is great for those willing to sacrifice their time and energies to help those who may be less fortunate. Serving others helps us to appreciate our gifts in life, and allows us to concentrate on others rather than our pain, our struggles, and ourselves.
Celebrate Peace and Love
The most profound suggestion that I have received for holiday recovery is that the holidays are a time of celebration centered on peace and love. Examine your holiday traditions and incorporate ways to celebrate the love you carry for your decedent in your heart. In so doing, the peace and joy that was once yours together will return to you. You will find that you are able to enjoy your holidays among those who remain with you, living and loving each other throughout the years and holidays as you progress through life.
If you have lost a loved one during the holiday season, or if this is your first holiday season since the passing of your loved one earlier during the year; I wish you comfort and solace. I pray for your recovery, and I hope that as you invent new and wonderful traditions, that you will write me and share them with me so that I can share them with others who are suffering and seeking relief too.
The past two weeks have been difficult for me. I have suffered the loss of a dear friend and have served families that have suffered great losses. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unwarranted loss, stress, and heartache to so many people this year. Not only have we lost loved ones, but we have lost our economy, our comfort, and our security as Americans. Everywhere I look, it seems that people are rude and uncaring toward each other when what we need is love. I wish we could be kind to each other, considerate to each other, and help each other through our difficulties rather than burning cities, burning businesses, and tearing apart what makes up great, our Union. Americans are the most blessed people in the world. We live in a time of convenience and wealth. Why is it then that we can’t add kindness and respect to our society? Why must there be murders and brutal attacks on innocent people walking down the street? I work with families every day who would give all that they have for just one more moment with their loved one to say, “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” Time is so precious, but even more precious is the way that we treat others. For if we treat others with contempt, we will reap the bitter reward of hatred. Hate eats a person from the inside out, and no matter how hard a hateful person tries to find happiness, it will never come to them. I know this because I see it every day. A hateful heart has no room for happiness. Happiness only comes to those who love. Love is like light. Light is the only thing that is stronger than the dark. If you have a completely dark room and you strike a match, the light from that match will push the darkness away and light up the room. Conversely, if you have a room filled with light and you cup your hands to create a spot of darkness. As soon as you open your hands, the dark is gone. Light overpowers it just as love overpowers hate. Love is the only thing that is stronger than hate. If you strike an ember of love in the heart of someone full of hate, love will grow and overtake their hatred. In my profession, love is very important. I see all too often those who have pushed love aside thinking that they were winning an argument or for some other ridiculous reason. What I see when this happens is that at the end of life, those who were foolish and let hatred get the best of them suffer the most. They remain miserable for the rest of their lives. Don’t be one of these people. Don’t let hatred get the best of you. And most assuredly, let us not allow hatred to overtake our country. I don’t want to live in a world filled with hatred and discontent. I want happiness and love for all. I especially want love in your life when you suffer loss because believe me, when the grim reaper knocks, it’s too late to cry for one more moment to say, “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” At that moment, the weight of hatred crushes every hope you ever had to make amends, to accomplish happiness, or to right any wrong you may have perpetrated. It’s too late and you are the person who will suffer the consequences of your vicious actions. You are the person who will have no friends, no love, and who will die alone; miserable because of your hatred and terrible deeds. I know because I see it in so many people who thought they could just make a statement, a judgment, or an action and not suffer the consequences. In the end, it’s the hateful people who suffer the consequences. They die alone without love or support. Their needs are not met and they writhe in misery. I lost a dear friend this past week. He was kind, loving, and good. He made the world a better place, and he made my life happier through his actions of kindness toward me. I wish everyone alive could have known my friend. Christ died to make man holy, and my friend John took up his offer. John was a holy man. He lived his life serving others, teaching others, and helping anyone who needed help. He was filled with love and he shared his love with those who needed it. If we could all be like John, the world would be an amazingly happy and beautiful place. John is gone and I feel the weight of his loss deeply in my soul. He leaves a legacy of service to our nation, service to Christ, and service to anyone who needed it. He was a good man, a great man, and now he is gone. I will have the honor of directing his memorial service in a few days. The church will be bursting as those who John served make their way there to express their sorrow and love for him. I will be one of those people. John’s legacy will continue in his absence because he ignited goodness, love, and service in the hearts of those about him. May we all understand and embrace John’s mission in life to serve and love our fellow beings. Doing so will bring us the greatest rewards. It will fill our lives with the greatest gifts on earth; joy, happiness, and love. This is my prayer for you, for our nation, and for the world during this time of uncertainty and discontent. Thank you, John, for being my friend, and my God bless you as you arrive home, never to suffer more, the pains of the world nor heartaches of men. Godspeed.
I received a first call late last night and was therefore at the hospital when I ran into an acquaintance of mine. As we spoke, she told me that her father had recently died. She began to cry and I offered to send over a set of my grief books (Mourning Light I, II, & III) to her office the following morning. I wrote her a sympathy card and delivered the books about 15 minutes ago. She had not yet arrived at her office, so I left the books and card with her secretary. The following is the note I wrote in the sympathy card. I thought I would share it, in hopes that it might help others who mourn as well. Dear Friend, February will be the 2nd anniversary of my grandson’s death. It is said that “Death is Final”; that is untrue. The pain and loneliness remain in my soul, and it feels as though I held his lifeless body, yesterday, in my arms. That day broke me; it almost killed me. Had I not had the love and support of my husband and children, I don’t think my sanity would have remained with me. The pain continues to crush my soul with anguish. There are 4 things that have helped me survive the debilitating pain of losing my grandson, and I wanted to share them with you in hopes that you might find peace in them as well. Prayer Prayer was, and continues to be, my saving grace. Without the love and promise of Christ’s redeeming grace, peace would remain unobtainable. Recounting my Experience Sharing my story out loud made it real. It took away my fear. It gave me power over the chaos of pain. Information As a certified grief counselor, knowing what to expect and whether it was normal or abnormal helped keep my worries at bay. The books that I have sent over are filled with information, plainly and simply written, to help you understand and identify the symptoms of grief, as well as recovery’s signs and secrets. Journaling Writing down my anguishes, thoughts, pains, worries, and fears helped me to let them go. I was able to organize myself, and it gave me hope for my future. I am sorry for the dreadful sorrow in your heart, and the pain that infiltrates your daily existence. I understand that breathing feels unnatural, it takes effort to continue on, and that peace eludes you. I wish that death did not exist, but it is a reality that the both of us know all too well; one that we must endure. I believe that families are forever, that we are all God’s children, and that we will reunite with our loved ones across the veil as we too, one day, experience death. Until that day arrives, however, I pray that you and I will live our lives as emissaries of Christ, basking in his grace, and recipients of his glory. I hope that as you suffer the loss of your daddy that you will feel comfortable in reaching out to others, and that you might call me should you need assistance. The pain of grief should never be carried nor suffered in silence, nor alone. Reach out and allow those who love and care for you to lighten your burdens. Life will never be as it once was, but it will improve as you share priceless moments of peace with those who remain by your side. I hold you in high esteem, and pray that Christ’s promise will grace your soul. With Deepest Regards, Tracy Lee My name is Tracy Renee Lee. I am a Certified Grief Counselor (GC-C), Funeral Director (FDIC), published author, syndicated columnist, and co-founder of the “Mikey Joe Children’s Memorial” and Heaven Sent, Corp. I write books, weekly bereavement articles, and Grief BRIEFs related to understanding and coping with grief. I am the American Funeral Director of the Year Runner-Up and recipient of the BBB’s Integrity Award. It is my life's work to comfort the bereaved and help them live on, as well as educate adults in the needs of surviving children.