When we are grieving, it is usual to feel aware of the passing of time but when special days that are usually celebratory come, it can be more difficult to cope with those feelings. The arrival of the New Year is one of those times for some who are missing their loved ones.
Instead of the cheerful anticipation for the clock to strike midnight and the jubilation that follows, there can be tears and sadness facing a new year without the person you love. And it doesn’t matter whether the loss just happened or whether many years have passed. How can we stay positive in the face of the new year when we struggle to with the grief of what was? Following are some ways that others have suggested to manage grief during the holidays. [Excerpted from various grief resources on the Internet]
Be kind to yourself in the new year. You don’t have to make the traditional fresh start, embrace diets, work out regimes, or start a daily gratitude list. Whether this is your first year without your loved one or whether it’s been many years since the loss, it’s important to honor your feelings and give yourself the proper time you need to grieve. There will be other years in which you can feel celebratory again. But this year be gentle with yourself.
Embrace who you are in this moment. We change much more than we realize. Remember you will not always be in this space, but while you are, allow yourself to feel all that comes with loss. There is undeniably an identity shift that comes with losing someone close. Be it a friend, family member, spouse, or child, their absence in your life will force change upon your soul. Most of us try to resist that change, thinking that the answer to getting through the pain is to try to remain exactly the same, to try to retain the person you were before the loss. But in fact, the opposite is true. When we can allow ourselves to let the loss shape us and change us, we will grow with experience, rather than against it. And whenever we stop resisting something then we can give ourselves the opportunity to heal.
Let this be a year of letting go. Not of your loved one, but of your expectations of yourself. You will never get over your loved one and you do not ever need to let go of them, but in order to heal you do need to release the idea that you can remain unchanged.
Don’t judge yourself. Each time you find yourself judging your grief process – whether it’s thinking you are too sad or too angry or simply too consumed by it all – let go and know that whatever you are feeling right now is normal and natural. You will eventually reach a state of less pain and sadness and anxiety. You will find a new normal. Until then, be gentle with yourself.
Remember you’re not alone. All around you are other people grieving over the loss of someone they love. It’s perfectly normal to feel alone, when things, places, and events remind us of the person we miss. Don’t hesitate to reach out to someone and ask them to pray. When we make an effort to find someone who understands, God will point the way. You will find people to walk alongside you.
Find new purpose in your memories. Good memories of loved ones can weigh heavily on our hearts because we dread the thought of them missing out. Instead of allowing those memories to cause despair, we can shift our minds toward renewed purpose. We can let the memories of those we loved most fuel our motivation to keep moving forward. When a new experience brings to mind an old memory, imagine your loved one’s delight in the new memory being made. Determine to make more memories in his or her honor.
One writer noted that we humanly tend to think of life in segments. We live in our mother’s womb – then we live on earth – then we’re gone somewhere else. But God views life so differently than we do. His ways are beyond what we can grasp. God created a seamless existence because the Bible tells us life with Jesus is never-ending.
This verse in Ecclesiastes can evoke a sigh of relief when you are feeling low over your missing loved one. Because the truth is, we aren’t really separated at all when we accept the gift of eternal life given to us through Jesus. Remember its promise.
“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11
May the year of 2024 bring us hope, joy, and prosperity. And let us carry every memory of our loved ones with us as we move forward.