As The Holidays Approach

As the holidays approach
By Jackie Wesley


As the holidays are approaching fast, we who are bereaved, always have mixed emotions about having a nice holiday when our child or loved one is no longer with us, We wonder if we will ever be as happy and if we can ever celebrate the holidays again or any of the “firsts” such as the first birthday, first thanksgiving, first Christmas and any other of the meaningful family occasions. We try to look ahead to how we are going to feel when the time arrives, it is usually not as hard as we had anticipated but still not at all as enjoyable as we’d like it to be or remember it to have been.

A few suggestions of things we can do to make our holidays a little better I think is, maybe buying gifts for less fortunate children, or adopting a child/family at Christmas time, inviting a lonely person to share your holiday meal, making your child’s favorite foods and discussing your loved one as you share the meal. Some people like to volunteer to help serve holiday dinners for the homeless, some want to travel to places their child loved to go, while others want to travel where their child never had gone before.

There are some of our Compassionate Friends members, who like to put a small Christmas tree up at the cemetery and decorate the graves with Christmas flowers and /or a grave blanket, The making of a grave blanket is very fulfilling, we did that for 10 years after Teresa died. Attending a Candle light program is a wonderful way to honor your child or loved one
These suggestions are things we feel we can still do for our child. Any of the suggestions can be done for any member of a family or a friend, its not reserved only for parents. After someone dies we must keep going and do things that lift us up and not always trying to please the other people who feels we should act in a certain manner. (Please click on Older posts )