At the Holiday Season’s start, survivors of loss often confess to me of wishing, “ I just want to take a pill and sleep through them!”  Or at the very least, they want to run away – as in going on a vacation to a place far away and different that won’t trigger familiar!  Still others choose to pretend that “it’s just another ordinary day,” staying home (ignoring reality, you could say), far away from everything holiday and family.

What all three of these ‘solutions’ have in common is avoiding an “up-close-and-personal” emotional reaction, such as longing for their deceased Beloved, that becomes amplified because of the holidays.  Deciding that avoidance is their only option, bereaved often stay as distant and disengaged as possible from any memory of a person, place or thing that can trigger sadness and pain.

I understand this choice because I too used avoidance, purposefully, to survive my First holiday without my beloved Papa!  But as that first year of my loss unfolded – with so many large and small  FIRSTS – I learned this simple truth that I’m sharing with you ….

Embracing our Beloved instead of distancing and disengaging, as described above, works a whole lot better!  Indeed, the simple act of outwardly remembering my papa while surrounded by my family and friends on  difficult holidays, like Father’s Day,  is a far superior solution to surviving any holidays than what I initially believed to be true!

So let me share with you a few examples that clients, over the years, told me about as their Simple Act of Remembering their deceased with family and friends when facing the Holiday Season.

One client said she’d asked each attendee to their family’s holiday gathering, to bring a flower and a brief written remembrance of a special shared  moment.  The flowers created a lovely bouquet and the written remembrances filled a bowl.  My client then had family members and friends either read aloud their fond memory to others or, if preferred, they could be read privately by attendees as the day progressed.

Other families preferred instead to make a toast – or have a moment of silence – to honor their Beloved while the family gathered around the table.  Some choise to read a favorite scripture, poem or saying of their Beloved.   One client told me that she’d set a place at the table where their Beloved had always sat and then had a ritual moment when that special seat was delegated to a next-of-kin, in this example, their daughter.

Granted these remembrances created emotional moments.  Tears followed as sadness and longing were ignited.  But that’s healthy healing!  And a family that can cry together, better shares other emotional occasions together!  And indeed the first year has a lot!

Acts of Remembering can be repeated at future holiday gatherings, if desired, or only be a One Time experience.  But this  Remembering really Needs to be done or avoiding easily becomes the family’s norm.  It can be done when the family gathers for the First holiday season after the death, OR the first time the family all gathers after its lose.  What’s the distinction?  Sometimes families choose to not gather on the first holiday because it too difficult, especially if the death is close to the season’s start.  I get that too.

To conclude, it really sucks when the decease’s absence at the holiday gathering is analogous to the ‘elephant in the room:’  ignored and unacknowledged.  Don’t let that be Your family’s  holiday experience.  Please!