10 ways to cope with loss during the holidays
1. Don’t completely isolate yourself from other people.
2. Allow yourself space to acknowledge your loss and the pain it has produced, but do not let yourself use the loss as an excuse to escape through alcohol or other addictive substances.
3. If a particular ritual is just too painful to try and continue this year, accept that there are limits to what you are capable of doing and forgive yourself for that.
4. Create a special new ritual that honors the person who is no longer with you.
5. Light a special candle and offer a silent or spoken tribute to this person.
6. Add a special decoration to your collection and display it in this person’s honor.
7. Choose a special recipe that was always a favorite and prepare it each year – saying a special prayer in their honor before consuming it.
8. Ask yourself and your family what this person loved most about the holiday season – and engage in this aspect of the holiday with especial fervor! If it was the lights of the season, throw your heart into decorating your home with the lights that always brought a smile! If it was the cookies, bake your heart out – even if you aren’t the most talent chef, enjoy doing something that your loved one would have enjoyed seeing happen. If it was the carols and songs of the season, let the CDs, Sirius, or Pandora serenade the silence with the songs this person loved.
9. Remind yourself that at this time of year, the shortest day falls on the last day of autumn. Winter may bring the coldest weather, the deepest hibernation of animal life, the barren trees may stand out starkly against the winter sky, but remind yourself that once the first day of winter has arrived, the days are once again growing in length and the nights are beginning to shorten. This is a magic time when we can feel the change in the natural world on a very deep level. The grief or loss you feel may ebb and flow like a tide, but remind yourself that there is a natural rhythm in life and it truly is always darkest before the dawn.
10. Honor your feelings, but don’t allow yourself to get so wrapped up in the loss that you forget the gifts that this person had brought to your life! When we let ourselves get sucked into a place of abject grief and darkness, we are sacrificing the joy that this person inspired in our lives and in others. Feeling sadness and grief is natural and normal; forgetting about the positive life force this person had been is not.
Source: Psychology Today
For many, the holidays are a time for family and togetherness. But for those dealing with the recent loss of a loved one, the holiday season can be a time sadness and emptiness.
And in the wake of recent national tragedies, the holiday spirit might be understandibly absent for many families.
The U.S. death rate tends to spike around Thanksgiving and remains elevated through the winter, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are a variety of reasons for the spike, including the increasing chilly weather, the annual spread of flu, car accidents and coronary events, to name a few.
Iary Eger was only 6 years old when she died unexpectedly during an afternoon nap on Nov. 2, just three days after her birthday. It’s still unknown why she died, but Iary was diagnosed with apraxia of speech and known to have seizures that could be triggered by anything, from a fever, infection or extreme temperature changes, her parents said.
Her father, Kurt Eger, described Iary as the family’s “little momma,” as she “would be there to take care of everybody.
“She was always there worried about everybody,” he said. “It’s surprising how quiet a room can be when you have six people in it and just that one person’s missing. There’s something subconscious in you that you just feel a void.”
Alex Flores-Ortiz, 7, Siclalia Flores-Ortiz, 10, and Yesenia Flores-Ortiz, 12, died in the early morning hours of Dec. 12, 2014, after fire torched their two-story house on Franklin Street.
Then just this month the family of Kinsley Kinner is coping with the grief of the murder of the 2-year-old, allegedly at the hands of Bradley Young, the boyfriend of Kinsley’s mother, Rebekah.
And while each of these cases is horrific, and the loss is sudden, coping with the grief is not uncommon for families who lost loved ones around the holiday season, said the Rev. Tom Dunlap, a co-pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Fairfield. But he said it’s important to not be alone even though it will be difficult and unpleasant.
“You have to have people around you,” he said. “Keep your expectations low, and you have to get through it.”
Dunlap lost a fiancee more than two decades ago when she was killed in an automobile accident the day after Halloween. He said for some it will be difficult to maintain traditions that included that person.
While losing someone close to the holidays is difficult for families, it can be equally as difficult when the loss happens earlier in the year.
“They’ve might have some healing, but then Christmas rolls around, and it’s all fresh again,” said Alonna Donovan Makinson, a counselor at Compass Point Counseling Services, with offices in Butler and Hamilton counties.
And though the loss can be painful, it’s important to have time to honor and remember those who you have lost, she said.
But it’s also important, Donovan Makinson said, to not ignore the present.
“You can get so caught up and thinking about the past that you’re not enjoying the present,” she said. “Try to focus on the present joys and being mindful, and not let feelings of the past overwhelm you too much.”
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