Blog Post

AND THEN THERE WAS CHRISTMAS...

Wendelien McNicoll • Dec 01, 2019

How feelings of loss can rise and fall around the holidays

Every year without fail since my father died, I have put on Mahalia Jackson’s Christmas CD and it evokes a deep yearning of missing and remembering him. Memories come flooding back of that that first Christmas without him. How were we going to ‘do’ Christmas, or even celebrate? Should we do the same as always or not? Go away or not? What would my mother want?

Do these questions sound familiar? This is part of bereavement that we call the ‘firsts’.

A first Christmas, the first birthday, (yours as well as theirs), the first anniversary of the death or the first wedding anniversary. All these first days can cause chronic anxious anticipation, often weeks ahead of the day. No matter how often you say to yourself “it’s only a day”, somehow it doesn’t stop that unsettling feeling in your stomach. You may think this first must somehow be a tribute to them and you want to mark the day to make it special. There is such wishful thinking around these days. How could there not be with the sudden change in atmosphere around the town and the first house that has Christmas lights on or a wreath on their door. The supermarket shelves start groaning with mince pies, festive foods and nuts, Christmas jumpers and Christmas related presents you never knew you wanted or needed.

Then before you know it, there they come, the waves of grief rolling in with all your longing for Christmas's past which can no longer be. I have never had a client in all my years of counelling who hasn’t brought up, “and then there is Christmas...” or “he or she loved Christmas” usually followed by the question, “what am I going to do?"

It is a time for a mutual, companionable and comfortable silence when the question is posed “what am I going to do this Christmas”. Not the sort of silence in which someone is not heard, but the contemplative silence of letting that question land deep inside. It allows time and space to feel the hurt, the longing, the missing, the yearning, the anger that they are not there, the frustration that you have to do it all by yourself, the fear you will never be invited out or that your children won’t want to come home and any other feelings and thoughts which may emerge in the quiet.

Out of all those feelings, the one that hurts the most usually comes into the space, spoken aloud (sometimes with tears) and is heard. The atmosphere in the room subtly changes. Now there is time for quiet reminiscing and memories. And from that quiet time, an answer rises to the fore. It is as if the Christmas spirit of their loved one has entered the bewildered thinking earlier and I hear: “He loved Christmas, I think I will…” or “Christmas started in November in our household, I think I will start it in December” or “we were never ones for Christmas but I think it was more his idea, perhaps I will celebrate it my way this year” or “I think I will start with a glass of champagne at breakfast, why wait till the evening”?

Notice the words “I think”?

A subtle change has taken place from “we think” to "I think I will…" but for that to happen, you need to give yourself some time to experience the pain of the Christmas grieving, maybe talk it over with family and friends because hearing yourself say out loud “what shall we do at Christmas?” gives you time to think about about it all.

I can affirm that everyone without fail has said after a first event, “the anticipation was the worst bit” and “the day itself was not as bad as I thought it might be”. You may find you are more resilient than you imagine and you have more courage than you think, to face this difficult time of year when you are bereaved. I know I will be putting on my Mahalia Jackson Christmas CD and sitting with my moments of what no longer is nor can be, and thinking “there goes another Christmas and I have found my way of marking it”.

< Older Post Newer Post >