Grieving During the Holidays

The statistics these days are grim: more than 800,000 dead from COVID-19. The odds are that someone you know is facing the holiday season grieving for a loved one. What’s the best way to help?

Megan Devine, the author of several excellent books about grief, It's OK That You're Not OK & How to Carry What Can't be Fixed, writes in a recent Instagram post,

“Grief has no expiration date. We carry our losses with us. Mentioning your person, keeping photos up, wearing a wedding ring, leaving a closet or bedroom just as it was, leaving favorite food in the cupboard - these are not signs of being stuck in grief. They're evidence that your person was here, that they were part of your life.⁣⁣
⁣⁣Your grief - how you express it - is as individual as your love.⁣⁣”

I love this. In her work, Megan Devine, stresses that saying nothing about someone’s grief doesn’t help a grieving person. It can make them feel like no one cares or remembers the dead. It makes a person who is grieving feel invisible.

At her website, Refuge in Grief, she offers some tips for those who want to help, but don’t know how. Here’s some of her advice:

• Let a grieving person be in pain, don’t try and cheer them up.

• Acknowledgment, naming and recognizing that they have suffered great lose can, she says, “make things better, even when we can’t make things right.”

• Instead of trying to fix the problem, try something like “I”m sorry that this is happening, can you tell me about it?”

This year, of all years, all of us have an opportunity to learn a better way to respond to grief than denial and dismissal. I wish you all a season of deep listening, clear seeing, and love.