Navigating Grief In All Its Holiday Guises
by Peggy Haymes, Pinnacle Associate
Thankfully, many churches recognize the the holiday season isn’t universally joyful for members of their congregation. Last year I decided on the spur of the moment to attend my church’s Service of Remembrance on a Wednesday night during Advent. I’d had no significant losses last year and yet during the holidays I felt a welling of grief for a previous loss.
Grief is like that.
No one would have reached out to me with a special invitation, yet being there was healing for me. Not every heavy heart comes from a recent loss. It doesn’t mean people haven’t done the work of healing. It just means that grief is coming around again, as it randomly does.
Grief can come in other ways.
Not every heavy heart comes from grief related to a death. A divorced parent may face the grief created by custody agreements that mean they won’t be with their children first thing on Christmas morning or they may miss the experience of seeing them in the program on Christmas Eve. A friend reminded me of a kindness I’d forgotten: The first Christmas Day she was without her kids I went to the movies with her so she didn’t have to be alone. It was such a small thing to me that I have little or no memory of it. She has never forgotten it even though those kids are now grown with nearly grown children of their own.
Now more than ever, family estrangement is affecting holidays plans. As I lead grief workshops and seminars for churches, I always list different kinds of loss on the whiteboard. In the last few years, every time I’ve done this someone has either spoken up in the group or talked to me during the break, pointing to that item on the list and saying, “This is us.”
Sometimes they are confused. They don’t know why that family member has cut off communication. Sometimes the reason is all too evident and even more painful because it seems so unnecessary. Families split over estate or caregiving disputes. Families split over political differences, especially when those differences are deeply tied to one’s view of the world or practice of faith.
It’s not unusual for families to avoid mentioning this fracture because it somehow feels like a failure and the failure brings with it shame.
Asking a church member, “So, when’s your family coming in?” feels like an innocuous question, especially if it reflects the reality of past years. But for a person who is grieving the dynamics of a family split, it can be a bitterly painful one.
This year, think about the assumptions behind your conversational questions. It’s just as easy to ask, “Do you have any special plans?” The person may or may not choose to share with you the realities they are facing but at least they won’t feel the need either to correct you by sharing that painful truth on the spot or to stay silent, knowing that their pretending is covering a terrible brokenness.
Sometimes as we think about grief sensitive responses we can tie ourselves up into anxious knots, worried about saying the wrong thing. It doesn’t have to be that hard. It simply requires one adjustment: being willing to throw out our assumptions about what the holidays look like for other people and in so doing, creating a space where they can be however they are without judgment.
When you don’t assume that you know the picture of their lives, it opens the door for them to be honest with you about their grief, whether it is during this holiday season or later.
