Life has not been easy since your spouse died. Every first and sometimes seconds, thirds, or tenth anniversaries are also difficult for some. But you made it through another holiday! Yet, this year, your first year, you did not feel like putting up a Christmas tree and you sighed of relief after the New Year’ came and went and you faced and overcame Valentine’s Day. A successful step forward, or was it? Yes, it was!
The holiday season is very difficult for many people, but especially for the widowed. It is difficult because the one person you shared the joys of these seasons with is no longer present. Now that the main traditional holidays are behind you, it is easier to breathe. Especially Valentine’s Day because it is the one holiday with love for two. We live in a couple’s world and it is not a friendly place for the widowed. Everywhere you look seems like Noah’s Arc, you know, two-by-two.
Now, Spring is around the corner and your newfound breath of fresh air feels new and exciting. Spring is refreshing. You feel a lift in your spirit as if the heaviness of the holiday season is over. Don’t look now, but there looms other forthcoming holidays like Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, your spouse’s birthday, your wedding anniversary and more which all remind you of your loss.
Many widowed people try to escape and do things like a cruise, hibernate, or even bury themselves back into their jobs to avoid facing their grief. You can temporally hide from grief with such tactics, but your grief will just wait until you can no longer run and hide, and then your grief will remind you of your reality.
Understand that as hard as your grief is to face, it’s designed for your wellbeing. Grief is healthy for you Physically, Emotionally, Spiritually, and Mentally. Grief is truly a blessing, it just does not feel that way now. Your grief is proportionate to the depth of the love you shared. The greater your love, the greater your grief. Loss is hard and never easy. The sooner you face your grief, the sooner you will begin the healing process. Your emotional health is vital to you as you re-entering society and cope with your new reality. I do not mean to make this process sound so simplistic, because it is not.
Grief can be scary, anxious, and insecure. You may feel rejected, threatened, lonely, guilty, hurt, frustrated, mad, and distant, just to name a few. According to American psychologist Dr. Robert Plutcheik, humans can experience 34,000 distinguishable emotions. Each one is emotional and impactful. The blessing in identifying and processing these emotions is after you have faced them, you may feel the weight of that emotion begin to lift.
After my wife died in June, six months later my children returned from college. They just wanted to be home. I just wanted to get out of town. I wanted to do anything but be at home for the holidays. This first Christmas was so different and I did not feel like celebrating, but I felt I needed to show my children that everything would be okay. I rented a cabin where we could cook, fish and just be together. No TV, no cell-phones. I believe getting away with my children was good for them and for me. We had a great time together but knew part of our family was missing. When we returned home, my children returned to college, but my reality was still waiting for me to face. Our trip was healing for all of us, but only a first step. Knowing I gave my children a measure of security from our bonding was reassuring, and now it was my turn to face my grief and work on navigating my future without my spouse.
The title of this blog is, “You made it through the holidays, now what?” My “Now What” is to take one step at a time. One new step each day, face my grief and rebuild and continue the life we both worked so hard to achieve. You have heard it said, “If it is to be, it’s up to me“, that is what I had to say each day. That is why I wrote the Surviving Spouse Club. I wanted to help others take that next step and avoid the pitfalls I made along the way.
I believe in you! I believe you have a choice. It is up to you to choose to rejoin society as a healthy individual with a huge supply of memories and experiences. Continuing your life healthy will be a blessing to others. We are all on a journey and it is up to each of us as survivors to honor our loved one and ourselves as we move forward in life.