Keeping Your Head High and Your Holidays Happy

Its that time of year again and who could miss it. The stores are displaying their goods, the advertisements and emails from retailers are filling up InBoxes, and people are beginning to prepare their lists. (and check them twice!)

But for some of us this can be a very difficult time of year, a time that we would rather skip, but with no escape we are thrown into the mix. When others are making plans to be with loved ones and friends, having parties and rejoicing in the spirit of the holidays, some of us are grieving over the loss of those that we loved – the loss of those who are no longer there to enjoy the festivities with us.

We think about how lonely and helpless we feel not being able to give them a hug or kiss to share a beautiful meal together or laugh at their jokes or simply see their warm smiling face. We think about how much we miss them and how much we want them back. We begin to feel the pain. The same gut wrenching pain that was there the day they passed. The grief that became part of my life just a little more than four years ago when my little boy was taken by cancer. A moment in my life that will remain with me forever, a moment that has given me great sadness and pain.

In the beginning of my journey through grief I felt that no one or nothing could make the pain and sadness go away I felt completely lost and I knew my life was never to be the same again. And I was right! No one can take that pain away and nothing can replace the sadness I feel and my life is not the same but I have learned that by embracing my grief and by allowing myself to feel the pain and sadness I have been able to blend that grief into my life and I am a much stronger person for it.

I give myself permission to feel everything and to have my moments to feel lost and to build my new life and now my grief no longer controls me. I give my grief its place in my life because my son is not someone I loved he is someone I still love, I will always love, and I will always have him as a part of me and I will always be his mother.

The love we feel for those we have lost is not something to get over or move on from it’s still very real and very much a part of us we just have those that we love in our lives in a very different way. The holidays are not the same for me now nor will they ever be again, but I have learned what to expect and I allow my grief to have its place because I know that with each passing year I get stronger and I am able to find happiness in the memories of what we once shared together.

Embrace your grief give it a place in your life. Feel the love you still have and you too will find yourself become stronger with each passing year.