Surviving Grief at the Holidays
Tending to a Broken Heart
People say, “I can’t imagine.“
But then they do.
They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer.
That’s not it at all.
It isn’t nostalgia for a time when things were different or better or you talked more: it’s a gut-wrenching, breath-robbing, knee-buckling, aching groan that lives inside you begging to be released.
There is no smooth transition up the ladder of grief recovery so that you emerge at the top, better for the experience and able to put it behind you.
Melanie “What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know, ” The Life I Didn’t
Choose
Acute Grief
I could feel the dread even before the holidays arrived.
The wallop of sick weight in the pit of my stomach; the sheer panic in realizing the holidays were coming (and that I couldn’t stop them); and the exhaustion of grief where I felt I just couldn’t make it through any more pain.
Early grief sent me whirling and frantic into a proverbial spiral. I felt helpless, hopeless, and too filled with despair to find a way to face the holidays without my son. Reading about how others handle grief during the holidays helps me find a way through.
Surviving Grief at the Holidays
This year, my reading included the article below, “How to Survive December With a Broken Heart” written by a mother who lost her son. It resonates with me, and I’m sharing it in hopes that it might help you, too.
“How To Survive December With a Broken Heart“
It comes up again and again-and not just for the parents facing their year of “firsts”: How do I survive December with a broken heart?
Be gentle with yourself. “Accept that you will not be able to do all the things you could do before child loss. Understand that tears will fall at the most inconvenient moments and grief waves will take you under when you least expect them to. That’s OK. You do not have to be strong or brave or keep smiling when you are sad. Feel what you feel. Do what you need to do.
Be honest with others. No matter how wonderful it would be if they could truly understand what it feels like to bury a child (without the experience, of course!), it is not the way things ARE. So if you need something from someone, speak up. If you don’t want to go to this or that, say so. If your heart can’t take one more family gathering or meal, send your regrets and stay home. Use “I” statements and say something like, “I’m just not able to participate in gift-giving (or whatever) this year. My heart won’t take it.” They may not like it. But they can’t argue with your experience.
Do not let people cross the boundaries you set up to protect your heart. Once you have figured out where you need to draw the line and have communicated that to others, hold fast. It’s really just fine to not return phone calls or text messages designed to force you to meet others’ expectations. You don’t have to be rude, but you also don’t have to submit your heart to constant trampling.
By Melanie – The Life I Didn’t Choose
Remember, the Holidays Will Pass
Be open to change. Do things differently. Choose not to celebrate as you always did. Plan to get away. Have a flexible exit plan: Give yourself permission to say “No” even though you’d previously said yes. Surviving Grief at the Holidays sometimes means being unpredictable, but it always means being kind to yourself.
And finally? Remember that November and December don’t last forever.
These days are just like all the rest: in the end we survive them one breath, one moment at a time. But we do survive.
Melanie, The Life I Didn’t Choose
