Coping with grief and the holidays
The grief and pain one can feel after the loss of loved may feel devastating, especially during the holidays. Grief can take you down different paths or stages that may filled you with so many different emotions that only you can understand.
You can feel like you don’t know what to do, and you are not alone, many people feel this way. Don’t be hard on yourself, don’t compare yourself or your process to anyone’s else, there is no right or wrong way to grieve.
“Grief is the price we pay for love”
Queen Elizabeth II
During these holidays, Christmas, New Year’s, focus on remembering all the love and good moments you lived with your loved one. Treasure the memories you made together. Share heartfelt stories with your family and friends, cook their favorite dishes, look at pictures, and find any activities that may help you find some comfort. Don’t feel obligated to participate in any celebration, people will understand. Rest and take care of yourself. Ask God for the strength to continue living a meaningful life to honor your loved one, and ask for support of family and friends if you need it.
GRIEF IS LIKE AN OCEAN
“As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive. Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out. Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.” By Tim Ofield
For more tips on how to cope with grief during the holidays visit: https://www.redargentina.com/how-to-cope-with-grief-and-the-holidays-11-helpful-tips/
“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.”
Vicki Harrison
References:
https://www.ofieldfuneralhome.com/grief-from-the-perspective-of-an-old-man