The pain passes, but the beauty remains. - Pierre Auguste Renoir
Grief.
There are so many memories that go along with our holiday rituals. The story we hear, again and again - the public story - is one of joy and connection, light and life. And there's truth to that story. This time of year brings us opportunities to be with those that we love, to turn a fresh page in our own story, to begin anew.
It also brings us an opportunity to rest, and reflect. We may or may not choose to spend the ending of a year, and the beginning of a new one, in just that way - with a bit of quiet. But the chance is there. And sometimes, in that quiet, we face loss.
Grief comes in so many forms, and this time of year has a tendency to highlight them. In my practice, some of what I hear is what goes underground - what goes unvoiced in order to give the world a time of magic and wonder. We do need the connection, the joy. We work hard for it, and perhaps especially during this time of year, we try to protect it. We are allowed to be guardians of our wonder.
Perhaps, we are also allowed to be tender with our pain. This holiday season, what would it mean to acknowledge memories of loved ones who aren't with us to celebrate? What would it look like to make space for the stress of navigating complex relationship dynamics, to give room to parts of this season that are hard?
For those reading this who are working to understand what it's like to celebrate this season with someone who has a terminal illness, who face difficult decisions around how to share holiday time following divorce, who cannot participate in festivities in the same way because you are in the hospital or struggling with disability, or who feel lost after losing someone that you love: I see you.
Here are a few books and resources that may offer you some company in the quiet. There are certainly more than what I highlight here. As always, take what works for you, and leave the rest.
Psychotherapist Francis Weller offers personal stories, poetry, and reflections that address the fear, shame and sorrow that accompany grief. This book acknowledges the importance of community, an atmosphere of compassion, and the comfort of ritual in order to fully metabolize grief.
Dr. Joanne Cacciatore is a bereavement educator, researcher, Zen priest, and counselor. In this book, she shares stories of her encounters with grief over decades of supporting individuals, families, and communities—as well as her own experience with loss. The book is organized into fifty-two chapters, which opens the opportunity to read through a chapter per week over the course of a year.
Kris Carr discusses her personal experiences with grief as she navigated the death of her father, pivoting her business during the pandemic, and approaching her twenty-year milestone of living with an incurable Stage IV cancer diagnosis. With humor, she shares "embarrassing, painful, helpful, hilarious, and sometimes inappropriate" stories in the interest of helping readers work through the dissolving of a relationship or marriage, the end of a job or career, significant unexpected transitions, or navigating your own illness and the death of a loved one.
This deck offers visual prompts for adults and children to help express, normalize, and cope with grief.
A podcast where grief is discussed candidly, with warmth and humor. Guests approach topics as diverse as how to discuss loss with children, what it's like to lose a parent, and the ways in which humans handle the confusion and uncertainty surrounding loss (heads up, this one is not for little ears).
One way of understanding grief is as a liminal space, when we are in between "what was," and "what will be." Our previous ways of being in the world are disrupted. What resources and rituals have helped you through the in between?
Take good care this holiday season. May pain be balanced with beauty, sorrow with joy, and loss with connection for you and your loved ones this year.
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