One of the reasons I founded Heartache and Hope, the ministry, was to be able to provide safe spaces-online and in person-for bereaved parents to gather because so often grief is excluded from our tables.
Most holiday celebrations don’t lend themselves to broken hearts expressing how very hard it is to bear up under the pressure to be hap-hap-happy while grieving the loss of a child.
To be honest, I doubt any degree of education or advocacy will change that on a larger scale.
But I want Heartache and Hope to make a difference in our own local community by hosting a “Blue Christmas” service at my home church in Bibb County, Alabama.
So,if you are able, join me Thursday, December 5th at 6:00 PM for an evening of gentle worship, remembrance and prayer-looking to Jesus, the Light of the World and the true meaning of Christmas.
The people who had been living in darkness have seen a great light. The light of life has shined on those who dwelt in the shadowy darkness of death.
~ Isaiah 9:1
My desire is that together we lean into the hope of the Promised One who came as a babe so long ago.
Don’t drag your heart through Advent feeling unseen, unheard and unloved.
I barely remember the very first holiday season after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
What I DO remember is that it was nearly as hard as the day we laid him to rest.
I had no idea how to carry this heartache into a season of light and laughter. There just didn’t seem to be any room for grief at the table.
Eleven years later and I’m a little better at it.
You can find many posts about Grief and Holidays on this site. Many of you have read them and I pray they help your hearts.
This year, I’m excited to be partnering with a sister ministry, http://ourheartsarehome.org, to offer a webinar on November 7th from 7:30-8:30 PM (EST).
I and several other seasoned bereaved parents will share a bit about how to navigate this difficult time of year AND how to include our children in family gatherings.
It promises to be a time of encouragement and hope.
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.
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.
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.
When I was forced into this life I didn’t choose, I had no model for how to navigate holidays post child loss. Not one Thanksgiving dinner nor Christmas morning of my life had been marred by the deep, dark MISSING that fills a bereaved parent’s heart.
So I muddled through, best I could, striving hard to embrace and accommodate my own and my family’s pain while managing expectations of those outside our immediate grief circle.
It was hard.
It was emotionally exhausting.
It still is, some days and seasons.
But if I’ve gained any wisdom from ten holiday seasons spent without Dominic, it’s this: Better to face it and make a plan than to ignore it and let things unfold willy-nilly.
I’m praying for you. Now. In October.
❤ Melanie
I will confess: I’m no better at this than the first set of holidays after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
Every. Single. Year. has brought changes and challenges on top of the empty chairs round the family table.
Since Dominic left us we’ve had additions (two grandchildren and various significant others) and sadly, more subtractions (my mother joined Dom in 2019). We’ve dealt with distance, deployment, healthcare and retail work schedules, a pandemic and lots of other, less easily defined tensions and difficulties.
It’s a paradox really-that grieving hearts can be more anxious and more sorrowful BEFORE and AFTER a milestone day, birthday or holiday than on the day itself.
That’s not true for everyone, but it’s a frequent comment in our closed bereaved parent groups.
Fearful anticipation of how awful it MIGHT be can work me up into a frenzy.
So many people think grief grows smaller over time.
But that’s not it at all.
Grief remains precisely the same size, occupies exactly the same space in my heart.
Instead, life grows around the grief so that the proportion of my attention and my emotions and my daily routine relative to grief changes.
I’m thankful for that!
I couldn’t have borne the initial heaviness for a decade. I couldn’t have (and didn’t want to!) feel that awful, piercing pain every minute of every day for ten years.
So how is Christmas differentNOWfromTHEN?
How do I celebrate, how do I mark Dominic’s absence, how do I carry the weight of missing along with the joy of living?
I have some small rituals that help my heart hold onto hope.
I light candles and I sit silent watching the flame. I build fires in my fireplace and allow darkness to fall while I celebrate the brightness that keeps it at bay. These remind me darkness cannot conquer the light.
I place ornaments on my tree that hold space for Dominic and for my missing of him. Little drums shimmer in the glow of Christmas bulbs. Even if no one else notices, I do and it makes me smile.
I decorate his resting place. I’ll be honest, I don’t feel close to him there. The grave isn’t where HE is. I actually feel closer to him in the home which was the hub of family activity for decades. BUT, my decoration reminds others who visit that here lies someone who is loved and missed.
I celebrate my living family. I want each of them to know that love lives forever. Yes, I miss Dominic, but I cherish each moment I have with them. Sometimes it costs me greatly to put on the smile and bake the cookies, but I’m still making memories and I want them to be sweet.
I set aside time each day (hopefully!) to give my heart a break. My habit is to wake before the sun so I have time to myself. In the silent darkness (candles or fire burning) I allow my heart to explore the edges I can’t afford to attend to in the busyness of daylight. I cry or journal or listen to music.
I have practical habits too.I write everything down. I don’t depend on my still deficient grief brain to remember details like what I’ve already wrapped. Calendars are my friend.
I try to remember that grace is boundless. I cannot exhaust the riches of the love and grace of Jesus. If I do less-than-my-best, grace abounds. If family or friends disappoint me, grace fills the gaps.
I have shared here since 2015-just eighteen months after Dom left us. My ongoing prayer is that sharing helps other hearts hold on to hope.
It’s a lifetime of missing, a lifetime of adjusting to the reality that one (or more) of the children we birthed is not here to share the present.
But that doesn’t mean life isn’t full and full of love, life and laughter.
My wish for you this season is not “Merry Christmas” but is, instead “Hopeful Christmas”.
May you see the love, light and life of Jesus in every sparkling bulb and flickering candle.
