Coping With Grief During the Holidays

By Dave Roark, LPCC

The holidays are a joyous time, but they can also be stressful and demanding. This is especially true for those grieving the loss of a loved one. In July of 2021, my 13-year-old son, Jackson, passed away from pediatric bone cancer after an unbelievably courageous 20-month battle. Everyone grieves in their own way, and what has helped my family and me is not necessarily the answer for everyone. But with that said, I would like to share some of my experiences with the holiday grieving process.

One thing I find helpful is to resist the temptation to isolate myself. I often thought that I wouldn't be "good company" or that other people might be uncomfortable if I became emotional. While both of those may be true, I have realized that the people I celebrate with are the people who love me and want to support me. I found it invaluable to lean into the love of family and friends, even when the temptation to shut out the world was there.

Next is resisting the temptation to "cancel the holidays." Something my family and I realized was that we were going to be heartbroken no matter what. Shutting everything else out would have made us overwhelmed by our grief. However, some traditions were so synonymous with Jackson that we didn't feel like continuing without him. Through this, we discovered it was good for our family to develop new holiday traditions. For us, it has been a balance between creating new traditions that aren't as painful and being OK with keeping a few sacred.

My son was my best friend and my hero. He always will be. I have felt new levels of anger and sadness at his loss, and I cannot avoid that. It is OK for us not to be OK. We should allow ourselves to feel our grief. Honestly, ignoring it will not make it go away. Give yourself permission to feel angry, sad, envious and the other numerous emotions that will flood through you during the holidays. You don't have to "fake it." Anyone who knows your situation and cares about you realizes you are not OK. However, on the other side, it is OK to feel joy. Last year was my first Christmas without my son. At times I would begin enjoying the holidays, and I would think that he couldn't enjoy them, so why should I? The answer is because he would hate that I quit feeling joy. I saw this young man continue to live and celebrate through awful circumstances. I owe it to my son to be as strong as he was or to at least try.

Something else I found valuable was embracing the positive perspective and engaging in acts of kindness. Jackson went out of his way to use the attention his illness received to encourage people to be kind to one another. One of my favorite moments last season was when my wife and I were informed of a young boy who only asked for his favorite book series. We had formed a book charity to honor Jack, a voracious reader, and used it to ensure the young boy got his gift. I felt like Jack lived on through us, and that was a feeling I always want to chase.

Perhaps the most valuable thing my family does in coping is to talk about Jackson. We tell funny story after funny story and quote him endlessly. Although it does hurt, we get more joy from celebrating the irreplaceable person that was our son.

There is no exact formula for grieving — and nothing removes your pain or loss — but I hope all, or some of this, can be used to help others in their grieving process.