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The holiday season is something that we all seem to look forward to each year. It is a time that family, friends, and loved ones get together to share joy, peace, and love. The season is usually filled with holiday cheer, parties, gifts, and travel. It is that time, above all times, when you somehow put disappointments aside to enjoy the happiness associated with the season. The season also culminates and brings an end to your years’ journey, as you prepare to rejuvenate and embark upon a new year. Although you cannot control the incidents and losses experienced during the year that’s ending, I’m sure you are hoping to leave the negative in the past, as you declare newness and positivity in the upcoming year.
The holiday season should be a time of joy and happiness; at least it’s what most of you hope for, look for, and desire. However, for some reason, many of you expect that you will have more joy and more happiness, based on the people you have in your life. Many of you tend to live for the relationships you formed have with your loved ones, putting your own life on hold. This makes it very difficult for you once they cross into the spiritual realm of death.
Although many of you view the holiday season as a time of joy, excitement, love, sharing, and celebration, the holiday season is a difficult time of the year. The holidays often bring an array of emotions of highs and lows. There are emotions of happiness, sadness, and many emotions in between. It is a time when you remember things you would probably like to forget, such as the loss of a loved one, along with your feelings and fears of loneliness, your negative financial situation, your unemployment, your underemployment, doors that have closed in your life, and other losses you have experienced. You would probably like to forget or rid yourself of your prevailing sense of sadness, your depression, and/or your seeming sense of helplessness, and hopelessness. As a result, you begin to question; where is the joy, and where is the happiness during the holiday season?
Whether happy or sad, some of the reasons behind your emotions are in your control, while many of them are out of your control. However, whether your life is filled with highs or lows during the holiday season, you are in control. You are the ultimate determiner of your thoughts, your feelings, as well as your actions or reactions to the events that occur within and around your life.
For many of you, the holiday season seems to exacerbate your already emotionally fragile state of mind and emotions. Not only are you having difficulty dealing with various losses during this time of year, but you are also faced with the issue of losing yourself. A loss of self causes major disruptions in your ability to celebrate and experience joy, happiness, and wholeness in your life, especially during the holiday season. Often, when faced with an array of losses, especially the loss of loved ones, your sadness can spiral out of control, into areas of depression. Although you might not be able to imagine or behold it during your loss, it is important for you to remember that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You also won’t be able to bring your loved one back into your present life, but just as the holidays come and go, so will the pervasive sadness you face! The new year won’t erase feelings you experience with the empty chair at the holiday table, but the new year will provide an opportunity for you to begin to mend from your loss, instead of continuing to mourn your loss.
As you leave the sting of the losses you experienced in the old year, the life, love, happiness, and joy you shared with your loved one will remain in your heart, year after year. The seat your loved one usually held at the dinner table might be empty, but your heart and your mind are filled with memories that can never be taken from you. As a matter of fact, the holidays can be a time for you to celebrate the life of your loved one instead of mourning the loss.
Because of the loss of so many lives, job losses, lost homes, lost businesses, lost incomes, lost relationships, the loss of human touches, lost hope, and in some cases the loss of faith surrounding the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, mass shootings, and other uncontrollable situations, it’s important that you remember the physical form and touch of your loved one. I empathize and I sympathize with those of you who have lost family members, friends, jobs, homes, income, businesses, faith, and hope. I am sure that Christmas was very difficult for many of you. This holiday season might be the first major holiday that you have had to deal with an empty chair or empty chairs at the dining table. And even more difficult for so many of you, whether your loved one transitioned from this life to the next realm due to the COVID-19 coronavirus or because of some other tragedy or malady, there is still an opportunity for you to celebrate the life of your loved one. You can celebrate by remembering the good, the great, and the grand times of life, instead of holding onto the pain of the death of your loved one. Begin to look forward to the promises of the new year, instead of focusing on the losses of the old year.
Loss and the ensuing grief are real! Although the loss of a loved one can be an unexpected event, the ensuing grief is a process that has no timeframe. Unfortunately, the difficulty with death is that it is never on your calendar, never documented in your appointment book, it cannot be predicted, and it is final in this life. And no matter how many times you are faced with death, you are never prepared for it. We all want our loved ones to stay with us for a lifetime. Sadly, life has shown us that not only is death an uncontrollable and unpredictable reality, our life experiences with various forms of losses have made them seem insurmountable. The reality is that you can, and you will move on and move forward after the death of your loved one. Amid your loss, you have chosen to celebrate your life, along with the life of your loved one, instead of mourning your loss and the loss of your loved life.
Yes, I know that the holiday season heightens your pain of loss and grief. You did not expect that you would have to bury your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your grandparents, and especially your child. However, during your pain, you can revel in the fact that you still have the joy, the laughter, the love, and the light that was illuminated in the life of your loved one and in your memories of him/her. Although your loss is difficult, it is important for you to remember that your loved one left you with memories that will forever impact your life, as well as the lives of others with whom they came in contact. It seems easy to mourn the loss of your loved one, but I challenge you to celebrate the life of your loved one, now and in the future.
Although you seem to be in a tunnel of darkness and despair during this holiday season, due to the devastating losses you have experienced, whether during the outgoing year or many years past, there is a way to move forward. And even if your heart still aches, through God’s grace and mercy, you have not only managed to survive the pain, but you have also managed to move forward. You CAN and you WILL move out of your tunnel of darkness and once again live in the light! It's important to remember that you are not alone; you are never alone! Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and ask for help. The mental health field has many organizations that you can call and seek help, including the following suggested organizations. Because of time and space, all mental health organizations could not be listed here.
· The Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT)
· The American Psychological Association (APA)
· The Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi)
· The American Counseling Association (ACA)
· The National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW)
If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, especially if this is your first holiday season without him/her, here are a few suggestions that can help you to manage your loss and your grief.
Now & in the Future:
1. Don’t deny your hurt, your pain, and your loss; you will begin to heal with time.
2. Keep a daily journal of your feelings and your thoughts.
3. Cry and shed some tears, but not for a lifetime; cloudy and wet eyes have difficulty allowing the sun to shine into your eyes and on your life, once again and into the future. Get up!
4. Pray for the soul of your loved one(s).
5. Write the top five things you cherish the most about your loved one(s) in your journal. Review them occasionally.
6. Share your feelings with family members and close friends.
7. Get up, open your blinds and your curtains, and get out; mask up and take a walk in your yard or your neighborhood.
8. Give yourself permission and time to grieve. Remember that your loved one(s) want you to live after his/her death and if he/she had a choice he/she would still be in this realm of life with you.
9. Reach out and check on others who share this loss with you.
10. Write a letter to your loved one(s). Place it in your Bible or just read it aloud and tuck it in a safe place.
11. If your grief becomes too unbearable, filled with increased depression and anxiety, seek help from a mental health professional or call 988.
During the New Year:
1. Take stock of your life as it relates to your relationship with/to the loved one(s) you lost.
2. Begin to take a journey of inner spirituality for you to begin to process the loss(es) of your loved one(s) as gains.
3. Behold the blessings and lessons you can count and cherish because of the crossing of your life paths
4. Decide what you will do with the blessings and the lessons you gained from the relationship(s) with your loved one(s), to help yourself and others. Make written plans to apply the blessings and lessons in real time.
5. Find the most memorable photograph of the two of you and place it in a conspicuous place for you to look at every now and then with a smile.
6. Continue to leave a vacant chair at the dinner table for your loved one(s) during the holiday season and birthdays, allowing his/her spirit to visit, while allowing his/her spirit to return to its newly found home of peace.
7. Celebrate the life of your loved one(s) on his/her birthday, special occasions, and during the holidays, by remembering the good times, celebrating his/her life, and not mourning his/her loss.
8. Periodically review photo albums, scrapbooks, and other memorabilia pertaining to your loved one(s) while you imagine and laugh.
9. Take care of yourself; relax, breathe, exercise, meditate, engage in yoga, and engage in your favorite hobbies.
10. Donate a meal or funds in the name of your loved one(s) to the hungry, the homeless, or other causes over the holidays.
11. Take time out of your busy schedule to pick up the phone to check on a loved one while he/she still lives, remembering “DEATH IS DONE!”
12. If your grief becomes too unbearable, filled with increased depression and anxiety, seek help from a mental health professional or call 988.
Remember, there IS a light at the end of the tunnel, but you must clear the tears from your eyes, along with the guilt, grief, and sorrow from your heart, to see it! It is important that you continue to pray daily for the renewal of your strength and your spirit, remembering that your loved one has only paid the debt that every human being will have to pay at some point in life. I challenge you to keep the faith, keep praying and allow God to lead you and love you! It’s important from this day forward that you celebrate the lives of your loved ones who have transitioned, instead of mourning the losses. They yet live…right inside of you!!!
Dr. Joyce’s blog will return next week,
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