Four Things to Remember About Grief This Holiday Season

At the tail end of August, I stood next to my uncle’s hospice bed as he passed. It wasn’t quick or painless. He fought a hard battle against esophageal cancer—something that wasn’t discovered until it was in a stage four progression at the start of the year. With this discouraging diagnosis, he still chose to endure two different types of invasive treatment—neither resulting in stopped or slowed growth.

“Failed” treatment aside, his stubbornness and desire to live were a force to reckon with. One I saw in his brother, my dad, who fought cancer for nearly a decade before he too passed in 2009.

When my dad died I had just celebrated my 19th birthday weeks prior. It was an objectively depressive celebration: I was seven hours from home and at a cancer treatment center in Philadelphia with my sick father. There weren’t any balloons, presents, friends, or decorations—but there was a cake a kind nurse delivered, and there was my dad.

I didn’t cherish the 19 years I got to spend with a pretty wonderful dad to the extent that present me would have. She was young and overwhelmed and struggled to feel safe in her own body. Instead of judging her, I’m working to empathize and love her. Because the thing is, present me knows grief and loss. She knows what it means to lose someone’s physical presence and energy—and through those experiences, she feels even harder than ever before.

She feels love, grief, heartache, sadness, joy, awe, gratitude, frustration, and every other human emotion often with the volume at full blast. The me now sees this as more of a superpower whereas young me felt far too vulnerable to feel so deeply. It was scary and I thought that I would get caught up in the waves, never to break the surface again. It was self-preservation.

But here I am now, approaching the supposedly most joyful time of the year with so many empty chairs. I’ll be honest though, I’ve got enough grief to fill the space.

When my uncle died, an old wound opened back up and widened. The loss of another paternal figure was a catalyst for old feelings and repressed trauma to resurface.

This time around, I was still terrified but also ready to safely feel.

It’s a lot. I feel so much and it shifts without much notice. I cry—or at the very least tear up—nearly every day. It happens so often that I’ve stopped keeping track. It helps to remind myself of a few things:

1. Crying isn’t a “bad” thing. Tears signal a release. It’s one of our nervous system’s ways of regulating. 
2. I am capable of feeling BIG emotions and I can do so in the presence of others (with the caveat that those are people I feel safe around).
3. Grief is an expression of love (that we feel is lost or has nowhere to go).
4. Joy and gratitude remain.

With that last one, I feel the need to clarify. No, I’m not telling myself or you to zero in on joy because it’s that time of the year. Absolutely not. I’m also not discouraging us from leaning into the grief. As cheesy as it may sound, we really do have to feel it to heal it. Does that kind of suck? Yes. Is it still true? Also yes.

I’ve been dreading the holiday season (Thanksgiving and beyond) because somehow the loss of my uncle (and secondary father) would feel more prominent and permanent, the gap larger and more obvious. It’s one thing to go about the day-to-day without someone around. They aren’t there to make upcoming weekend plans with or you can’t send a text about the football game to gush over a killer play. But to witness the number of people gathered around the table or tree grow smaller and smaller? That can seem like a whole other beast. An empty chair this time of year can be especially heavy. The lack of physical weight is a paradox to what we’re carrying inside. 

There’s also the pressure put on us to embody joy and cheer. If you don’t, someone might think it fine to say that you’re channeling Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch.

Pardon me, but fuck that.

We aren’t stuffing down our emotions.
We aren’t burying them so that they can eat away at our insides.
We aren’t plastering on smiles that don’t quite reach our eyes.

I’ve done it before and I hope to never do it again. I hope you can allow yourself the same authenticity. I hope you’re safe (internally and externally) to exist this way too.

If your joy is boundless, let it abound.
If your grief is immense, may the depths of your love keep you afloat.
If you’ve got both, embrace the pause when the tides shift.

We can create room for all of it. We can feel and feel and feel. We can ride the wave and greet the day—all while letting it unfold with honesty and compassion.

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Our Mental Health Toolkit is a free resource packed with therapist-guided practices, self-reflection worksheets, affirmations, and more. 

Some that come to mind include…

Intro to Somatic Movement
In the Midst of Depression

What Are You Feeling Worksheet

We’d also encourage you to use TWLOHA’s FIND HELP Tool to locate professional help and to read more stories like this one here. If you reside outside of the US, please browse our growing International Resources database. You can also text TWLOHA to 741741 to be connected for free, 24/7 to a trained Crisis Text Line counselor. If it’s encouragement or a listening ear that you need, email our team at [email protected].