Grief and the Holidays

Grief and the holidays, they don’t go well together. Ask anyone who has lost a loved one this year. Their pain this month is excruciating.

My mother has been gone now for twenty five years. There are some days when I have to look at her picture to remember what she looked like. That makes me sad.  But I have some memories of my mother during the Christmas season that I will never forget. The woman loved Christmas.

I think she loved it for many reasons but the most important reason was because she loved to give. And she always gave out of love. I don’t remember many gifts she gave me but I do remember with great clarity the love she gave.  

Working with hospice patients has made me realized that a universal fear of the dying is that once they are gone, they will be forgotten.

In Thornton Wilder’s book “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” he tells the story of a rope bridge over a deep gorge that collapses and five people die. He makes this conclusion: “Soon we (who knew them) shall all die and all memory of those five will have left the earth. We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love. We are put on earth to learn to love, and when we have done that, we have fulfilled our life’s mission.”

To those of you who are grieving this year, I would encourage you to focus on the fact that because you loved that person and they loved you, their life’s mission was fulfilled. 

May you all have a peaceful Christmas and New Year