Category: holidays

Grief and Holidays 2023: Practical Ideas for Dealing With Holidays After Loss

It cannot be overstated:  holidays are extremely hard after loss.  Every family gathering highlights the hole where my son SHOULD be, but ISN’T.

There is no “right way” or “wrong way” to handle the holidays after losing a child.

For many, there is only survival-especially the very first year.

These days also stir great internal conflict:  I want to enjoy and celebrate my living children and my family still here while missing my son that isn’t. Emotions run high and are, oh so difficult to manage.

So I’m including some ideas from other bereaved parents on how they’ve handled the holidays.  Many of these suggestions could be adapted for any “special” day of the year.

Not all will appeal to everyone nor will they be appropriate for every family.  But they are a place to start.

Read the rest here: Practical Ideas for Dealing with the Holidays after Child Loss

Grief and Holidays 2023: What the Bereaved Need From Family and Friends

I know it is hard.  I know you don’t truly understand how I feel.  You can’t.  It wasn’t your child.

I know I may look and act like I’m “better”.  I know that you would love for things to be like they were:  BEFORE.  But they aren’t.

I know my grief interferes with your plans.  I know it is uncomfortable to make changes in traditions we have observed for years.  But I can’t help it.  I didn’t ask for this to be my life.

I know that every year I seem to need something different.  I know that’s confusing and may be frustrating.  But I’m working this out as I go.  I didn’t get a “how to” manual when I buried my son.  It’s new for me every year too.

Read the rest here: Grief and Holidays:What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

Grief and Holidays 2023: Having Hard Conversations

You don’t have to bury a child to know that changing long-standing family traditions around holidays is a hard, hard thing.

Just ask a parent trying to work out Thanksgiving and Christmas for the first time after an adult child marries.  Suddenly the way things have “always been” are no longer the way things are.

Holidays typically involve so many more people and family members than everyday get-togethers and each person brings expectations, emotions and personal history to the table.

So, that is why I decided to run this series of posts NOW.  Because one of the things I have learned over the years is that giving people time to adjust to change is a good thing.

Read the rest here: Grief, Holidays and Hard Conversations

Grief and Holidays 2023: Working It Out

The first set of holidays after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I was both numb and absolutely devastated.

Our family’s loss was fresh enough that folks understood if we just couldn’t do ALL the things or even anything. And that’s pretty much how we blundered through.

The next year, which was more than eighteen months post-loss, it was harder to explain to others how my heart was still oh, so raw and how the thought of “celebrating” still felt overwhelming.

I didn’t want Dominic’s absence to dominate the holidays but I couldn’t pretend it didn’t make a difference.

So I realized I was going to have to speak up and plan ahead because no one else was going to do it for me.

Here is the first in a series of posts I wrote that year-for myself, for my own family to read and to share with the bereaved parent community in the hope they could share with THEIR families and friends.

Our own holiday observations have changed in the years since I wrote them but the principles remain the same.

❤ Melanie

I live in Alabama where we are still sweating buckets under the late summer sun, so I understand if thinking about the holidays is the furthest thing from your mind.

School just starting, new routines in place-am I crazy?

Well, yes (you can find plenty of folks to back you up on that) and no-the days keep coming, one after the other, and these big days will be here sooner than we think.

And for grieving parents, it takes some thinking, some planning and some preparation to meet both extended family’s expectations and extra responsibilities at Thanksgiving and Christmas while carrying a load of sorrow and pain.

One thing I am learning in this journey is that even though I wish someone else would blaze the trail for me, I’m going to have to do it myself.  And because every major milestone is overflowing with emotional booby-traps, I have to plan ahead.

Read the rest here: Grief and Holiday Plans: Working Out the Details

Bereaved Parents Month 2023: Holidays and the Empty Chair

Summer time has its own way of highlighting Dominic’s absence.

Warm days and extra daylight can sometimes slow things down so that every moment hangs heavy with longing.

When we gather with family for cookouts or reunions or Fourth of July in this mama’s heart there is always an empty chair even when every available seat is full.❤

Most people realize that the “big” holidays are painful for bereaved parents-Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day-that makes sense.  

But what most people don’t know is that every single red-letter day-even the obscure ones-can be hard on parents missing a child.

Read the rest here: The Empty Chair

Father’s Day 2023: Father’s Day for Grieving Fathers

I’ll be honest-I bristle more than a little bit when people suggest that bereaved fathers don’t feel grief as deeply as bereaved mothers.

They absolutely do.

The problem is that, as a group, bereaved fathers are less likely to make their feelings known, less likely to talk about the impact grief has on their lives and less likely to allow others into their private world of pain and sorrow.

For that reason, fathers are often overlooked grievers.  

But they shouldn’t be.  

Dads aren’t bystanders in the shattered world of child loss-they are participants as parents of a son or daughter whom they love just as much as any mother. 

So just like Mother’s Day is hard for moms, Father’s Day is hard for them.  

Read the rest here: Father’s Day for Bereaved Fathers

Father’s Day 2023: Bereaved Dads Need Support Too!

I’ve written often about how important friends are to our grief journey. They can encourage, provide practical help and simply by their presence remind a heart that darkness and despair is not all there is.

Men need friends who will step up and step in. They need masculine examples of sharing and caring.

Men Can Have Better Friendships. Here's How : NPR

They need grace and space to unlock the chest of emotions that they sometimes keep tucked away and hidden from their family because they think it’s their job to “be strong”.

So if you know a dad whose child has left for Heaven, reach out in the next couple of days before Father’s Day.

Read the rest here: Don’t Forget Dads!

THIS is Why Memorial Day Matters

Today is a day when we honor those who gave the last full measure in service to our country and our country’s wars.

It is a day to remember and mark with solemn gratitude the sacrifice of a life poured out.

You don’t have to agree with the reasons for a war to grieve the individuals who died fighting it.

Read the rest here: Why Memorial Day Matters

Are You Experiencing a “Holiday Hangover”?

Sometimes the day or the week after a holiday seems extra hard.

Deflated. Exhausted. Weepy. Irritable. Discontented.

All words that can describe a heart once the dishes are washed and the celebration ended.

Some of y’all probably woke up thinking, “I did pretty good on Mother’s Day” only to be blindsided by the tears you managed to hide and the grief you managed to stuff.

That’s OK. It happens.

Read the rest here: Holiday Hangover

My Tenth Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

When it first happened all I could think about was getting through a minute, then a day and then all the decisions and days leading up to a funeral or memorial service.  

There’s no road map.  

Even when others come alongside (and many, many did!) there’s just no easy way to navigate that part of the journey.

And then I realized that in addition to all the “regular” days that absolutely, positively  break your heart, I had to forge a path through “special” days.

It was overwhelming!

Mother’s Day was especially challenging that first year.  Our loss was fresh and we’d had to acknowledge and celebrate two graduations and a wedding was about a month away.  How in the world could I honor my living children and also safeguard my broken heart?

We muddled through by having Mother’s Day at my daughter’s apartment co-hosted by some of her sweetest and most compassionate friends.  Not a lot of fanfare, but good food, good company and a quiet acknowledgment of Dom’s absence but also my living children’s presence.

It was a gift. 

This is my tenth Mother’s Day.  Every year is different.  Every year presents new challenges and every year things change.  

Since discovering there is an International Bereaved Mother’s Day my heart has taken advantage of having a day to think about and honor Dominic and then another day to think about and honor my living children.

That helps.  

I wrote this post six years ago but can’t really improve on it so I’ll share it again.  I pray that each heart who finds Mother’s Day hard will lean in and take hold of the hem of His garment. 

It’s really the only way.  

Read the rest here:  Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother