Living with Grief During the Holidays

Messages of joy, love, cheerfulness, and family togetherness seem to be synonymous with the holiday season, and while this time of year can be all of those (and more) for some, it can also be a time of year when deep sorrow, sadness, and grief abound for others. One of the most challenging parts of grieving loss during the holidays can be navigating the happy, cheerful, joyous messages bombarding us via television, social media, friends and family, and retail stores without any acknowledgement of the pain we carry alongside the joy. 

This year is my second holiday season without my beloved grandmother, Frances, who died in July 2020. I hold many treasured memories with her: her laugh, her storytelling, her Donald Duck impression, and her beautiful piano playing. The memory that comes up the most at this time of year is how she would wrap gifts, as they would be close to impossible to unwrap, and how she would often sign the tag with “From Atlanta Santa.” 

As I recall these memories with tears in my eyes and an ache in my heart, I’m also filled with her love and tenderness that continue to feel ever present with me. Both beautiful and painful, memories of our loved ones hold the seemingly opposing feelings of love and pain; yet, when I look more closely, I see that they are not opposed at all. Rather, they are two sides of the same coin. 

Recently, the actor Andrew Garfield made an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”  Choking back tears, he spoke about his mother, who died this year. He said, “This is all of the unexpressed love. The grief that will remain with us until we pass because we never get enough time with each other, no matter whether someone lives until 60 or 15 or 99. I hope this grief stays with me because it’s all of the unexpressed love that I didn’t get to tell her, and I told her every day. She was the best of us.” 

Similarly, the poet/author Kahlil Gibran, wrote, “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked...the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain,” and Brene Brown reminds us that “joy is the most vulnerable emotion we experience.” Brown goes on to explain that in her research she found that the people who were joyful were not the ones who’d never experienced deep, profound loss. Rather, they were the ones who had experienced deep, profound loss and were able to practice gratitude in the midst of it. 

Wherever we find ourselves today--joyful and delighted, sorrowful and anguished, living in a mixed bag of both--we can navigate and survive this difficult season by connecting with those who can hold space for our grief. We can give ourselves extra breaks from social media and screens. We can set boundaries when needed. We can practice compassion for ourselves. We can breathe deeply. We can heal ourselves, together. 

Additional resources on managing grief and stress during the holidays can be found here.