Right around mid-October, before we get barraged with the holidays, I always feel myself needing to retreat. It’s as if an army of worries, anxieties, and memories start marching towards me and, feeling unarmed, I retreat and look for places to hibernate. I just want to disappear for a few months until it’s all over. But before we know it, Halloween comes and goes, we start preparing for Thanksgiving travels, and begin our Christmas shopping. That army marches towards us whether we like it or not. Time stops for no one.
The holiday season can be a beautiful season, albeit busy, but when one has to live them with a piece of their heart missing, it can seem too much to bear. Most of us have the expectation of family coming together during the holidays but when your family is incomplete, everything feels out-of-sync and heavy. For many of us, holidays can be the roughest time of year when we miss our child more than usual. Holidays seem to magnify the loss. The sadness feels sadder and the loneliness feels deeper. Rather than letting the holidays take us by surprise in our grief, I wanted to share a few ways that I’ve managed to navigate them.
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