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25 Ways to Give Holiday Hope to the Grieving

This will be the [eleventh] Christmas without Dominic.

I’m certain that for some of my family and many of my friends, they are less and less aware of his absence. That’s completely natural and understandable.

But for me, his absence looms just as large THIS Christmas as it did that FIRST Christmas.

Even if you do realize how hard it is for grievers during the holidays, you might not have any idea how to show you care.

I came across this list originally published Family Life Today that gives 25 ideas to give holiday hope to the grieving and wanted to share it because I think it is wonderful.

I can promise you that any hurting heart would be delighted to have a friend or family member reach out in one or more of these ways.

25 Christmas Gifts or Remembrances for the Brokenhearted

1. A tree that can be planted in the family’s yard in memory of the loved one (or a gift certificate to a nursery that can be used to purchase a tree in the spring)

2. Bibles, Christmas Poinsettias, or library books given as memorials

3. Memorials to the local church or charities

4. Home videos of the loved one (especially ones of activities that the family may not have)

5. A scrapbook filled with pictures of the loved one

6. Special Christmas ornaments (for example, if the child played the piano, see if you can find an ornament in the shape of a piano)

7. Books such as Streams in the Dessert and When Life is Changed Forever

8. A personal item that would become a memento about the loved one’s personality or gifting

9. Gift certificates to a cabin or lodge, or to a place that the loved one once enjoyed

10. An original poem about the deceased

11. A journal from friends and family with written memories about the deceased

12. A written tribute to the deceased (The Best Gift You Can Ever Give Your Parents by Dennis Rainey and David Boehi, explains how you can do this.)

13. Addressing their Christmas cards or notes

14. Joining them in holiday shopping or doing the shopping for them

15. Asking if you can help decorate their home for Christmas

16. Sharing homemade Christmas cookies

17. Arranging family photographs in albums

18. Inviting them to decorate a gingerbread house

19. Picking them up for Christmas services at church and holiday get-togethers

20. Helping them shop for that “perfect gift” that they can give to others in memory of their loved one

21. Decorating a small tree with ornaments that have special memories of the loved one

22. Helping them write holiday memories

23. Organizing a candle-light memorial for close friends and family

24. Having a family-time of singing some of the deceased’s favorite Christmas carols and hymns

25. Giving the brokenhearted blank journals to write Bible verses that remind them of God’s presence, such as 2 Corinthians 1:3-4a and Jeremiah 29:11

Repost: Christmas Cards-Yes? No? Maybe?

I’m posting this again because last year it seemed to help some bereaved parents figure out something that plagues all of us: what to do about Christmas cards after a child runs ahead to heaven.

This year I did things a little differently. I actually sent out Thanksgiving cards (a week late since my mom was in the hospital) and included a similar note with those.

Whatever you decide to do, do it because it helps YOUR heart, not because you feel compelled to meet others’ expectations. ❤

Getting Christmas cards out on time was always a challenge in my busy household.

So for the last years of kids at home, we transitioned to sending New Year’s greetings. It was easier to get a family photo with everyone home for Christmas, there was no artificial deadline to send them and we could include a “thank you” or respond to news in their Christmas letters.

I haven’t sent anything for three years.

What could I say?

And a family photo was out of the question.

Read the rest here: Christmas Cards-Yes? No? Maybe?

Holding Space

We do it all the time in the physical world-leave the shopping cart in line with the admonition to the person behind us to “hold our place” while we run to get that forgotten item.

We leave a gap for that minivan to pull in just where the construction cones narrow a highway from two lanes to one.

We open a door and step aside so the elderly lady with her hands full can manage to get through without dropping the load.

But most of us are not as good at it in relationships.

I think part of the reason is because we are often unaware of the NEED to do it. We don’t have external cues like traffic cones or physical barriers or long lines waiting to check out or get in.

So we miss the opportunity to step aside, or step back or simply wait a moment for another heart to catch up or move over or step through.

Sometimes it’s because our minds are so used to multi-tasking and treating every single minute as if “time is money” that we are unwilling to slow down enough to truly HEAR another heart.

two women rear view

I find that if I’m not very, very careful, I spend a good part of the time I’m supposed to be listening, constructing my response before the person I’m “listening” to has even finished her comment.

It takes a lot of discipline not to do that.

And I don’t always exercise it.

I want to be a person that holds space for others. I want to be a heart that listens well and pays attention to the message another heart is sharing.

I believe that when I do that, I can lighten a load.

Because often what someone needs is just to know they are seen,

they are heard and

they are loved.

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?

There’s no single answer or list of things to do that will suit every family.

But there are some general principles that can make even this awful reality a little easier:

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.

Be open to change. This is the fourth set of holidays for me without Dominic. Each year I’ve entered the season with certain ideas about how they will go, what will and won’t be helpful, and where I needed to set boundaries. And every year I’ve made adjustments. Some things I thought I COULD do, I couldn’t. Some things I swore I’d NEVER do, I’ve done. Work schedules, plane delays, illness, or even happy surprises alter plans and require adjustment.

Remember that December doesn’t last forever. As hard as this season is, it is only a season. The earth turns, the sun rises and the days pass. If you spend the month in bed with the covers over your head, January will still roll around. If you get up and participate (whatever that looks like for YOU) then January will also show up on schedule.

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.

Pressure Relief Valves and Blowing Off Steam

I use a pressure cooker when canning some things from the garden. It’s the only way to ensure food safety for low-acid, low-sugar foods.

It took me awhile before I could work up the courage to use that contraption-when a pot comes with warning labels about “check to make sure seal is intact before every use” and “always be certain pressure cock is seated properly and working”-well, that’ll make you think twice about how much you want canned beans come winter.

I imagined all kinds of awful scenarios the first time I fired up the stove under that big cooker. But none of them came to pass. Sixty minutes later and all was well.

I’ve thought a lot about my pressure canning days recently and how that pot is uniquely created to allow just enough steam to escape to keep it from exploding. Sure, it gets mighty hot (that’s the point-to kill the bacteria) but not so hot that it bursts into lethal metal shards all over the kitchen.

I feel like so many of us (bereaved parents or not!) are like that pressure cooker-boiling and roiling with heated emotions getting hotter and hotter and threatening to explode.

Some of us do.

It’s messy or even dangerous.

I’ve thought about how critical that relief valve is to the proper function of the pressure cooker and how people need relief valves too.

Some of us find relief through hobbies or exercise or journaling or praying. But many of us can only relieve our sense of building pressure by talking to another person.

We need to be HEARD and SEEN in order to let off steam.

We need someone to be the relief valve for our pent up feelings so they don’t spew uncontrollably over everyone and everything.

So when you are thinking about what YOU can do for someone going through a tough time, here’s a thought: Offer to meet them and let them talk. Just let them say whatever they need to say without correcting them or judging them or steering them toward safer topics of conversation.

Just listen.

Offer appropriate comments now and then so they know you are paying attention but let them empty their hearts of the pent up steam of strong emotions.

Then keep all the secrets they shared in your own heart. Don’t spread them around to others and don’t use them later as ammunition or leverage.

Listening is love in action.

Providing a safe space for a heart to let go is one of the best gifts of all. ❤

What IS and IS NOT “Impossible”

I freely and publicly admit that until Dominic ran ahead to heaven I was just as likely as the next person to declare something “impossible” when it was really simply hard, distasteful or uncomfortable.

Because before Dominic was snatched away in an instant-irretrievably lost to me this side of eternity-I lacked perspective.

I didn’t realize that as long as someone is breathing, there is hope.

As long as there are choices, you can make them.

As long as people offer to help, you can let them.

What I am facing may seem insurmountable but if money, time and/or energy can make a difference, then no circumstance is truly impossible.

So I carry an absolute yardstick in my heart: death is the only utterly impossible situation.

Anything that falls short of that holds out hope.

I can choose to grab hold or choose to let go, but I have a choice.

It may be excruciating and hard and frustrating and foolhardy, but I can still hold on.

❤

The Irresistable Power of Love

As you gather with loved ones today, can I tell you something oh, so important?

Don’t wait for that phone call or red-letter calendar day to reach out. Don’t let busy-ness overrun your life so that it squeezes out what and who is really important. Don’t let twelve months separate this time and the next time you talk to the people you care about.

When you think about someone-call them or get in touch in some way. We have the potential for connectivity as never before. There is really no excuse for not sending a text or an email or a Facebook message. Don’t just think about it, DO it!

Love is irresistable when it’s not just a feeling.

Love in action can break down walls, build bridges, overcome evil and speak courage to broken hearts.

There is so much we cannot control in this world-so many hard things we cannot stop from happening.

But when we choose to love-really, really love-we can create pockets of peace and places of safety.

Never underestimate the power of love.

Gratitude and Grieving: The Truth Will Set You Free

How much energy do we spend dancing around the truth? How many times do we gather with family or friends and cast our eyes downward so we can ignore the elephant in the room? How many shackles would fall away if just one person stood up and said what everyone else was thinking but was afraid to whisper aloud?

As family gathers around the table for Thanksgiving, we all have those subjects no one will touch. And often they are the very ones that need to be laid bare, talked about and shared. They are what keep hearts apart even while bodies sit closer than any other time of year.

Now I’m no advocate of random outbursts intended to shock and raise a ruckus but I am a firm believer in speaking truth in love.

It’s hard.

In fact, next to carrying this burden of missing, it is the hardest thing I do.

And I am often unsuccessful.

I screw up my courage, practice my speech, lay out the strategy and then crumble, last minute, under dozens of potentially awful outcomes.

What if they get mad? What if they think I’m crazy, or selfish, or wrong?

Or I DO share and it falls flat because the words I thought would communicate love are misunderstood or misdirected or misapplied.

So instead of helping, I hurt.

But the alternative is this: we all remain imprisoned behind a wall where freedom is clearly visible on the other side. We can smell it, almost taste it but not quite touch it.

And that is not how I want to live.

I want to claim the freedom that truth offers.

So this Thanksgiving I will try again: truth in love.

Lots and lots of love with truth sprinkled in. Maybe the sugar in the pie will help.

I’ll never know if I don’t give it a shot.

Why I Have To Talk It Out

I admit I’m full of words. When my mama came to pick me up when her best friend was babysitting for awhile, she said, “You can’t have her yet, she’s telling me all kinds of things!”

More than once my mouth got me in trouble.

It’s still the source of most of my problems.

But for a time after Dominic left I found that the only words I could muster beyond what was absolutely necessary were written in my journal. Because the words I wanted to say were bitter and harsh and tasted bad as they came up my throat and threatened to roll off my tongue.

I didn’t want to tell the story of that early morning knock. I didn’t want to speak aloud the terror that gripped my soul, the literal shattering of my heart, the unholy darkness that enveloped me.

I HAD to make phone calls. I was forced to say, “Dominic is dead” over and over and over. Then I wanted to hide in silence and stay on the fringe of conversations that filled our home and the church before we buried him.

It seemed easier to swallow the words than taste them.

But I couldn’t do that forever.

Eventually the words began to rot inside me and make the pain even worse. I had to let them out. I had to talk about it. All of it.

The actual events.

The feelings associated with the accident.

The pain of choosing a cemetery plot, a casket, an order of service, of writing an obituary, of burying my son.

The awful emptiness that one life missing makes in a family of six.

The fact that at some point I woke from the stupor enough to wonder how the God I had worshiped for all these years let this happen.

And I needed someone to listen. I needed someone to be a witness to my words. It was no longer enough to write them down, wrap them up and hide them away.

They had to be spoken so that the power they had over my soul could be broken.

Thank God for people who are willing to listen!

I have friends and family who let me recite the same thing over and over and over so that each telling helps my heart toward healing.

I have several online and in-person communities of bereaved parents who do the same (and more!) because they understand precisely how I feel and can offer hope from their own stories of healing.

Listening is love in action.

If you know someone whose heart carries great grief-and child loss is not the only hard journey hearts are making–offer to listen.

Give up a few minutes to hear how they are really doing, what is really hard, what they really need to say but may be afraid to speak aloud. Leave spaces in conversation so a heart can work up the courage to share. Don’t be quick to offer platitudes that shut down deep discussion.

It often takes many, many repetitions of traumatic events for a heart to begin to heal.

And each time you grant someone permission to share and listen to his or her story, you are applying balm to a weary soul. ❤

Too Scared to Stay

How many reading this enjoy roller coasters? Or scary movies? Or action films?

My guess is that most like one or the other or all three.

Why? Because it’s fun to dip our emotional toe into deep water when we know we can take it out at any moment.

We experience a sort of “high” when the “fight or flight” adrenaline pumps through our veins but our minds know full well that we are in no real danger.

What’s much more difficult is to commit to experience in real time with real people the real emotional roller coaster of hard situations and unending sorrow or pain.

Then people tend to withdraw because they are too scared to stay.

I am so sorry that broken hearts are wounded further when friends or family just can’t bear the pain of watching us hurt and run away instead of walking with us.

They are afraid. I used to be afraid too. But I’m not afraid now.

My new bravery was purchased at great cost. And I don’t want to waste it.

This Valley is teaching my heart to reach out further, quicker, more often and to stick around longer than I was willing to before.

I want to stand with and speak courage to wounded hearts.

I want to help healed hearts that choose to be brave and commit to walk with those in pain.

And I am learning to extend grace to the hearts who choose to run away.

Fear is powerful and I can’t blame them.

But for those who remain, I am so, so grateful.

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