Scenes of Christmas are all around but for those who are facing their first holiday season without a loved one, the senses of joy and cheer are numb.
Focusing on a lost loved one is encouraged, according to counseling experts and board members of Birmingham’s Community Grief Support Service (CGSS).
Create a memory box for the loved one, said Lois Alexander, who participated in CGSS following her husband’s death. The memory box is a place to store items from or about the person who has died, such as letters from them, drawings by them or pictures of them. The box helps preserve lifelong memories of the person, she noted.
Speaking during the Nov. 15 Holiday Help Seminar at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham Association, Alexander said, “As time goes on, just love those memories. My journey has been of so many blessings and lots of grief.”
But there have been more blessings than grief, Alexander said. She stressed the importance of recording feelings during the grief process. Writing down one’s feeling, she said, will aid in understanding those feelings.
The seminar particularly offered suggestions on how to survive the holidays, while also celebrating old memories and creating new ones. The first is simple: not all traditions must be observed this year. Some traditions may be too difficult this time around. Besides, they can be picked up again next year.
Also, simplify and organize shopping lists and other time commitments. Instead of buying a different present for every friend, maybe find one CD and give it to all of them. Make lists to stay focused and remember holiday activities. Then, stick to them. If the invitations to parties, dinners, church activities and so on are piling up, don’t be afraid to say, “No.”
If this is the first Christmas season without a loved one, CGSS members admitted to the 75 attending the seminar the holidays will be both different and difficult. Fortunately, friends and family are there to make it both bearable and beneficial. While together with family, ask them to share their memories of the loved one. Not buying a present for the loved one may be particularly difficult, so try giving a present to someone who would not otherwise receive one.
Though the holidays will prove to be quite hard without the loved one, taking these specific steps will help during the grieving process.
Louis Josof, a counselor in the Birmingham area for more than 25 years, said grief is not an end. “The purpose of grief is to take us beyond our reaction to loss,” he said.
“Our comfort is what we’re familiar with and who we’re familiar with,” Josof said. It hurts when one of those things is removed. “It all comes down to what you do with it,” he said.
Society, Josof said, tends to put a timeframe on how long people should grieve. It denies people the time and the space needed to properly recover from a loss, he said.
Remembering lost loved ones can alleviate holiday grief
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