Holidays and Grief

Holidays and Grief

The experts don’t tell you what grief is really like. They have the process neatly wrapped in five stages- a formula that progresses step by step and eventually leads you to acceptance. What I have learned about grief in the last 2 years is it is not linear! Yes I am aware the grief journey is different for every single person. But I have a feeling most of us in the middle and muck of death are just trying to breathe and survive and are not fully intentional about which stage of grief we are in. 

I am surprised when I am ambushed by grief on holidays. Logically I know holidays and celebrations will be difficult but I have been ambushed by grief in ways I never imagined or was prepared for. I was overcome on my birthday this year because it was the first one where those amazing humans that created me out of love ( well mom actually forgot to take her pill- it was a brand new concept in 1967) , who gave birth to me, who loved me unconditionally were absent for the first time in 55 years. 

The approaching Christmas season is filling me with incredible anguish. I try to put on a brave face but inside I am broken. You know why? It caught me by surprise.  It isn’t what you may think. It is because on Christmas Eve there won’t be a gift for me to unwrap. (Our family tradition was to open one gift on Christmas Eve) And when I wake up on Christmas morning, there will be no gifts for me. Unless I buy myself a gift but what is the point. I don’t share this for pity or for people to send me gifts. I share it because this is the reality of a single woman grieving the death of her parents on Christmas. 

I knew this holiday would be difficult so I started to make plans so I wouldn’t be alone. I was going to travel overseas to my cousins in Northern Ireland but it turned out to be logistically challenging and very expensive. But then I got offered this new part time job at the Cathedral in Toronto so I am actually working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Plan B- I asked a friend if I could stay with them on Christmas Day when I am finished at the church so that will be great. I have a plan. I am still dreading the holidays. Although I have been in this place of grief not long ago. I need to hold on, breathe and walk with the emotions that pour out, not fear them. I am strong. My parents prepared me for this moment. 

There is hope. This advent season is all about hope. As the poet John O’Donohue so eloquently writes, “when the work of grief is done, the wound of loss will heal…” The work of grief is not done in my life yet. That is okay. One day I will heal. But for now, I will grieve how I want because…

When you lose someone you love,

Your life becomes strange,

The ground beneath you becomes fragile,

Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;

And some dead echo drags your voice down

Where words have no confidence

Your heart has grown heavy with loss;

And though this loss has wounded others too,

No one knows what has been taken from you

When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret

For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;

Again inside the fullness of life,

Until the moment breaks

And you are thrown back

Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,

You are able to function well

Until in the middle of work or encounter,

Suddenly with no warning,

You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.

All you can depend on now is that

Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.

More than you, it knows its way

And will find the right time

To pull and pull the rope of grief

Until that coiled hill of tears

Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance

With the invisible form of your departed;

And when the work of grief is done,

The wound of loss will heal

And you will have learned

To wean your eyes

From that gap in the air

And be able to enter the hearth

In your soul where your loved one

Has awaited your return

All the time.

—by John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings