Navigating Loss at Christmastime

Navigating Loss at Christmastime December 22, 2021

As Christmas approaches many of us will be grappling with the loss of those we love.  And the holiday celebrations will lend a particular poignancy to those losses.

There will be people missing from the pews alongside us as we worship.  There will be empty chairs at the dinner table.  Family rituals, familiar topics of conversation, and endearing behaviors will be missing from the fabric from our celebration.

Such experiences have an irreducibly autobiographical character to them.  While we can identify elements that we all share in common, there is also endless variation in the way that we experience and navigate those losses.  So, what I offer here will be imperfect, but I hope that it may spark your reflections and suggest a way forward in this Christmas season.

For those of us who are navigating those losses, allow me to suggest the following:

Don’t let yourself be lured or bullied into thinking that you need to “get over your grief.”

To be sure, there is a kind of grief which – if allowed to drift and color your experience of life for too long – can be debilitating.  The best indication that grief may have that kind of hold on us is the extent to which we are immobilized or paralyzed.  Initially, we all experience the death of those we love as a kind of emptiness.  But if you find that you cannot move forward, consider looking for spiritual direction and counseling.  Focus on doing small things.  Stay in touch with others you love and trust.

That said, “getting over” the loss of loved ones is ill-advised.  It makes no emotional or spiritual sense to talk in terms of getting over the loss of anyone who has been deeply meaningful to us.  Such language suggests goals that are neither achievable nor desirable.

It makes better sense to “relearn the world.”

The best way forward in the wake of loss is to carry the gift of those loving relationships into our lives.  Those we love touch our lives and shape us.  But if we are lost in grief, it can be hard to remember the ways in which they have blessed us, and grief can obscure gift we have been given.

Alternatively, we can acknowledge our grief and then “relearn the world.” Though this is a subtle and difficult process, relearning the world requires at least two steps: (1) name the contributions our friends have made to our lives and then (2) begin to reflect on the ways in which we might recognize and incorporate those contributions into the way we live.

Acknowledge the complexity of loss and be gentle with yourself.

Whatever you do this Christmas, be gentle with yourself.  When we lose those we love, there are countless layers to the losses we incur.  We lose a sense of connection, meaning, and belonging.  Conversations that have made us who we are can no longer be carried on in the same fashion.  Memories that we have shared and nurtured together are now ours alone.

And remember this:

Christ embraces us across that divide which cannot resist the power of the Resurrection.  Those we lost are never far from us and in Christ we approach the celebration of Christmas held by the one we call Emmanuel, God with us.

 

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash  

 


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