The Holidays are hard. Even without a loss to color our ability to celebrate and complete all of the Holiday tasks and expectations, the Holidays can be draining and stressful. However, when you are no longer with someone you have loved or that you love still, the Holidays can be overwhelming and full of so much grief and pressure that they feel impossible to negotiate or get through.
There is no limit on how we lose someone for us to feel profound grief. Death may be the most final and complete loss of someone we love, but it can also be incredibly painful to lose someone we love through divorce, the end of a relationship, moving far away and other reasons for separation. All of these can cause us to face the Holidays with profound Loss and Loneliness rather then the joyful Holiday spirit we are all supposed to have.
When we are without someone we loved or love still, someone who made the Holidays special and more joyful, someone who helped us navigate the family craziness and manage the expectations placed on us….the Holidays just hurt. We try to put a good face on but it is a hollow act without much real emotion behind it. And, pretending to be okay is exhausting. We pay a price for appearing “normal.” It leaves us feeling empty and even more alone because we have been carrying our real feelings and sadness alone, tucked deeply inside in order to avoid the judgement and hurt that comes from others not understanding how we feel and why we feel the way we do. So, even in a room or house crowded with people who wish they could help us, we can be painfully alone with our grief, sadness and true feelings.
How can we celebrate Holidays when our heart is smashed into a million sharp, slicing pieces and every decoration, song, special gathering…all of it - just hurts? It is all a reminder of who we no longer have with us, what we will no longer share and enjoy. How can we find the “Holiday Spirit” when the only spirit inside us has been replaced with an aching loneliness and we are weighed down by a grief we dare not share?
Many people will try to love us through the Holidays. They will ensure us that the person we loved and lost to death will always be with us in our heart and thoughts, and that “they” would want us to be happy and enjoy the Holidays. If we are grieving a relationship that ended by a means other than death they may say that we are better off without the one we loved. These do not really help when your arms feel empty and cold, and ache to hold the person you will never hold again. The truth is that often what they are saying is really about making them feel more comfortable around us than it is about making us feel better. Others mean well, most of them truly do wish they could help, and so we smile and nod, and thank them for their support, not letting them know how badly we feel. But, nothing can soothe the pain in your heart…that horrible, constant pain caused by the reality that for now and always the Holiday will always hurt because you miss the one person who made them special. Over time the pain will not be as sharp during the Holidays. It will diminish as time goes on. But when our loss is new and our grief is fresh, the pain is so exquisite that there is nothing anyone can say or do that will help.
So most of us put on a good face and do our best to not spoil everyone else’s Holidays. We do our best to hold in our tears and sorrow. We go through the motions. It is exhausting.
There are other ways to get through the Holidays when you are grieving, than to “tough it out.”
They will be explained in the next entry. For, now, hold on to the reality that no matter how powerful your grief feels and how lonely you may be with it, there are many others experiencing similar grief and who are struggling just as you are. That reality may not make things better for you. However, it may help to realize that you are not totally alone, even though your relationship and experience was different than anyone else’s. Others are hurting during this Holiday season, too.
I will soon publish some things to do to help this season. And, know that many of us wish we knew how to help. Trust their good intent and share what you can with those you trust the most. It can help more than you can imagine.