Thursday, December 28, 2017

Remembrance And Holiday Revelry

My mother never liked having a birthday just three days after Christmas. She felt the occasion got lost as Christmas and New Year's celebrations overshadowed her special day. It seemed like an afterthought with birthday presents too often doubling as Christmas presents -- a complaint when she was a child -- and too often being forgotten amid holiday revelries by those who should have remembered.

If she were still alive, my mother would be celebrating her 105th birthday today. However, the birthday celebrations -- such as they were -- stopped in her mid-sixties with her untimely death just before the holiday season began. And since she left us, I can't help but remember her birthday every year when the day comes around just after Christmas, just before New Year;s.

Death, grief and the holidays seem an uneasy mix, but this is reality for many. This is a time for togetherness and rejoicing but is also a time for remembering, for bittersweet days, as we miss those lost. Losing a loved one, missing a spouse or parent or child or special friend is painful any time of the year, but may be especially intense during the holiday season.

How do you deal with grief and painful losses and memories during the holidays and early into a new year, another year, without that special person?

1. Find new traditions that bring you comfort in this new reality.  Perhaps the first holiday season after a significant loss, you might choose to do something entirely different -- to celebrate with another family member or friend, to take a trip or engage in different activities. While some do find comfort in continuity, others find solace in breaking from old traditions altogether.

My friend Chuck suffered two horrific losses around Christmas some years ago. A few days before Christmas in 1987, his brother was killed in a helicopter crash and was laid to rest on Christmas Eve. Three years later, as he was driving his mother to Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, she suffered a fatal heart attack. And Christmas has never been quite the same. He has chosen, since her death, to spend holidays away from home with his spouse, often at a tropical beach, basking in sunshine while also remembering lost loved ones in his prayers at the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass he always attends.

2.  Embrace the love you do have as you grieve your loss.  Mixing gratitude with grieving, loving moments with treasured family and friends to balance the loneliness of loss, can help a great deal. I've noticed the value of this particularly this holiday season with my two dearest friends.

My friend Mary lost her beloved husband John in early December and my friend Tim lost his wonderful mother only a week before Christmas Eve. Both losses are devastating and life-changing. But both of these dear friends have experienced love all around them -- the love of family and long-time friends and people they might not have known as well but who have stepped in with surprising emotional generosity to say a word of comfort, to share memories of the lost loved one, to extend an unexpected kindness. It all adds up to feelings of inclusion as both simultaneously grieve a loved one and celebrate the holidays with others so dearly loved.

3. Find comfort not only in the company of others, but also in moments alone.  Those alone times are important as you go through the grief process. Don't be shy about expressing a need for some time to reflect, to remember, to cry, as much as you appreciate the support others are extending to you. During my week with Mary after her husband's death, she would occasionally express the need to be quiet, to "be with him for awhile". She would go in their room and close the door and simply be with her pain and allow herself to feel his changed presence and the major transition that his passing had triggered. Then she would emerge, warm, refreshed, ready to engage with loved ones present. Listening to your own needs at a time when you have such support from others is important. There will come a time when your loss is less raw and more daily reality, when your family and friends will return to their everyday lives and work -- caring still, but perhaps not as present -- and having learned to be alone with your grief will serve you well when that time comes.

4. Reach out to those who are also in pain. This can mean participating in a grief support group. It can mean bringing happiness to those in very different circumstances with volunteer work. It can mean sharing memories and comforting family members and friends who are also missing your lost loved one.

During the holiday season in 1980, my brother, sister and I were in shock: our father had died of a heart attack in July of that year and, four months later, our mother also had a fatal heart attack. We were orphaned in young adulthood -- my sister only 25, my brother and I in our early to mid-thirties. But we became aware that others were in shock and pain, too: our aunts, especially my father's sister Aunt Molly, who had never married. Our father was her only surviving relative and our mother her best friend.

And there were several close, long-time friends of our parents who grieved them as family.

Reaching out to them, comforting them, crying with them and remembering with them was a significant part of coming to terms with our own loss.

5. Be inclusive of lost loved ones in your holiday -- and everyday -- traditions. Make those you've lost a part of family celebrations -- with stories and memories shared with smiles as well as tears. Or with recipes and traditions that came from them. And by simply pausing to remember.

This is the 38th holiday season -- and birthday -- without our mother. And yet she is very much with us. My brother Mike, a doctor who works and lives with his wife and two children in Bangkok, Thailand most of the year, makes it a point to come back to the U.S. during the holiday season. And one of his traditions is to visit our parents' grave either on Christmas Eve or on our mother's birthday.

This year, he brought his five-year-old son Henry, named for the paternal grandfather we never knew, to Forest Lawn. Mike explained that this was the grave of Henry's grandparents whom he would never know. Henry was quiet. Looking down at the grave, he spoke softly to his deceased grandparents: "I love you and I miss you." And he gave a traditional Thai wai (a bow of respect with hands pressed together as if in prayer.)

It was a special, quiet moment, bringing past and present together, in a spirit of love that lives on for days and years and decades through sweet traditions and warm memories.

                                                                     


Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Soothing Holiday Stress with Civility





In these divisive times, it's  more important than ever to maintain civility during family holiday gatherings.

How can you keep your temper, hold your tongue and keep a festive holiday event from becoming a disaster?

It can help to cultivate a habit of civility and to take a page from the 12 step programs, saying  "Just for today, I will..."

1. Refuse take the bait. This is a huge help when your conservative Uncle George, a die-hard Trump supporter, or your equally fervent Aunt Judy, who vows to support Bernie 4-Ever, pounces on you with a confrontation about your own beliefs, affiliations or voting record. You might say "I just want to enjoy you today without our differing views getting in the way. So what about....." And bring up a favorite sports team or ask about their children's or grandchildren's latest achievements. Or inquire about their health or even ask about their travels or what you know is a favorite hobby. Anything to avoid the conversational flashpoint that can derail a family holiday celebration into a scream-fest.

2. Deflect conflict with humor: If your smug, know-it-all older brother descends on you with his 97 reasons why Trump is doing a great job (or 97 reasons why he's an absolute disaster), cut off the confrontation with a little self-deprecating humor: "Look, you know I’m a wild-eyed fanatic. Don’t get me started! Let's give everyone here a break. Mom and Aunt Sally have gone to a lot of trouble to make this wonderful dinner. I don’t want to spoil it. So let's discuss all this at another time and in another place!"

3. Stifle the urge to set someone straight: Don't tell a family member who is a total hypochondriac that he or she is healthy or venture the thought that a tortured youth really had a delightful upbringing. Just listen. Hear them out -- until you find an escape -- without feeling the urge to poke holes in their reality. The same is true of family stories: each person may have his or her own version of the same event. Don't jump in with "No! It wasn't that way!" Listen and then offer your own memories in a non-threatening way: "What I remember most about that day is....." and perhaps observe that what makes family stories so fun or interesting is that all members bring different perspectives and memories to the tales.

4. Take the high road: If met with hostility and continuing attempts to get to you, don't react in the expected way. Instead of meeting hostility automatically with anger, think for a moment, reflecting on the unhappiness of this person or other painful feelings behind the stinging words, and say "You may be right...." or "I'll have to think about that."  or "I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one..." This unexpected reaction can take the wind out of the confrontational relative's sails without a major blowup.

5. Keep confrontations gentle and, if possible, private. If someone says something so offensive, you can't let it pass, take the person aside to talk it over instead of escalating the conflict in front of everyone. And, as you consider countering these offensive comments, ask yourself if these are alcohol-fueled and if the offender could even hear and understand another point of view right now. If you can't avoid disagreeing in front of everyone --e.g. at the dinner table -- say "I see things differently..." but don't attack the other. Simply state your feelings as well as your desire to have the pleasure of all being together take center stage.

Another course of action is to avoid holiday celebrations where others are guaranteed to be (take your pick) boring, offensive, obnoxious, controlling or otherwise challenging to your peace of mind. However, in avoiding the problematic, you may also miss seeing some people you truly enjoy.

Remember that you don't need to win to have a good time. You don't have to match another's hostility to get him or her to back down. You don't have to agree with a person -- on one topic or most topics -- to love him or her a lot. 

Keep in mind that holiday gatherings are usually a mixed bag of fun, tedium, old memories both joyous and fraught, new memories of the bad and the beautiful moments. Some of these you simply, just for today, endure and move on. Other moments can bring pleasure and happiness for years to come.