Copy
December 2017

The Season of Grief


Grief affects us year round.  However, the holiday season always seems to hit us extra hard.  We are hit with what can be an overwhelming blend of family functions in which a loved one is no longer present, well wishes from joyful strangers who do not (and can not) understand our pain, and weather that encourages us to bundle up inside with our grief.  Constant reminders of the past seem to jump at us from nowhere, or float around us throughout the season always in our periphery of memories.  We imagine a whole future of holidays to come that will never be the same as the ones that came before.  It is a lot to handle.

If you are currently experiencing this holiday season during a season of grief, we hope that you know that you are not alone.  There are so many out there coping with similar feelings, just trying to make it through the day, the week, the month, the season of grief.  If you are lucky enough to not be grieving this year, we hope that you will take a moment to consider who in your circle may be grieving and reach out to them.  Be a light in the darkness to someone who may be struggling to find the happy in happy holidays. 

‘Tis the Season?

by Donna Rothert

I was ambivalent about doing a holiday related post. There are certainly other places on the internet to find great articles that address the challenges of this time of year for those who have experienced reproductive loss. They offer useful ideas regarding how to cope with family members, find meaning in the holidays and ways to create your own traditions.  These articles can feel like lifesavers for those who are grieving babies during the holiday season.  If you’re interested, I would recommend looking at the National Infertility website Resolve or googling “pregnancy/infant loss and holidays.”

But as Thanksgiving approached, I kept thinking about a scene from the movie “Return to Zero,” a Lifetime movie that came out earlier this year.  It’s based on a true story about a couple coping with the loss of their stillborn son.

This particular scene takes place some months after the loss and the grieving woman, played by Minnie Driver, is in the midst of alcohol affected family Thanksgiving dinner.  At the table, family members start expressing gratitude for various things in their lives and making toasts.  Following her father-in-law’s elaborate and effusive toast “To Life!” (during which Driver’s character visibly sinks further into her own drunken sadness), she makes her own toast:

“I’m thankful that today I can see life for what it really is.  To know that just beneath the surface, just under the radar, is death.”  She says a few more lines and ultimately raises her glass “to Death!”

The words are sad, defiant, jarring and clearly disturbing to some of the family members, but make perfect sense to the bereaved couple.  The toast seems to me to be a kind of postcard from the upside-down version of the holiday experience, a version that needs to be acknowledged.  Certainly partly influenced by alcohol (which I don’t, by the way, recommend as a coping mechanism),  the character is giving voice to what is lost in her life.   Read More...

Share
Tweet

Tear Soup, A Recipe for Healing After Loss

by Pat Schwiebert and Chuck DeKlyen

If you are going to buy only one book on grief, this is the one to get. It will validate your grief experience, and you can share it with your children. You can leave it on the coffee table so others will pick it up, read it, and then better appreciate your grieving time. The “tips” section at the back of the book is rich with wisdom and concrete recommendations.  Shop Here...
 

DVDs

Sometimes it is easier just to watch a DVD rather than to read a book, especially when you are emotionally and mentally drained following a loss... and winter seems like the most fitting time to curl up with a movie.  With this in mind, we have put our whole collection of DVDs are on sale this month.  From our most popular, Tear Soup, to a variety of others focused on how to help children grieve, infant loss, suicide, etc., they are all marked down through December.   Shop Here...

Dropping the ball. Literally


by Tim Overdiek

TUESDAY, December 22 – Part of it is jet lag, of course, but I find myself depressed by the triviality of New Jersey.  The Marketfair Mall, for example, where for eighteen years I regularly watched Jennifer walk into and out of each and every store.

It’s around the corner from the movie theater and Victoria’s Secret where I used to buy beautiful lingerie for her. There was Baby Gap, where she’d buy outfits for nieces and nephews and the children of friends. And next door, the grown-up Gap where we bought our jeans. At the far end of the mall there was a Barnes & Noble, where we’d wander around for hours, often taking home three, four, five or six books. And sometimes we just settled for coffee and chocolate chip cookies.

There was a theater where we used to sit in the car for hours after the movie, or outside on the curb looking up at the stars and chatting. Or in silence, listening to the crickets. This is the movie theater where nothing ever changed:  there was always the same man who tore our tickets in two and waved us in – and that’s only the mall.

Further up on Route 1 we paid our traditional visit to Target. I saw Jennifer in each and every aisle, strolling in her flip-flops, hunting for bargains in the Girls’ Department. I bought the second season of the Mad Men series, one of our favorites. We’d gotten about half-way, and I couldn’t really see myself finishing the series all alone. I bought the DVD pack, without quite knowing why.

21:00 – They’re decorating the tree. One more damned tradition:  Grandma always waited until her daughter and the grandchildren arrived to decorate the tree. This time Eamonn and Sander were helping her. Then, on top of everything, Jenn’s favorite ornament got smashed to pieces. A silver-orange-and-blue New York Mets ball. I deposit the remains in the trash can. Still, there’s an empty spot in the tree, only visible to us.

Share
Tweet

Singing Ornaments

You hold your loved ones who have died close to your heart, and these ornaments are the perfect acknowledgement of that feeling. A small heart or star is suspended in the center of the ornament, illustrating how you carry your loved ones with you, wherever you are. They can be used as a holiday ornament, wind-chime, or as a remembering gift to loved ones. Available styles include Star, Angel, Heart, Butterfly, Dragonfly, Dove, and more.  A birthstone can be added to  personalize your ornament.  Shop Here...

Feeling Heart Necklace

Our popular Feeling Hearts are now available as necklaces, allowing you to put your heart on display for others to see. Each heart is handmade, and no two are exactly the same.  A thoughtful gift for a grieving loved one.  Shop Here...

Quote of the Month

We continued talking as my purchases were rung up—about the first Christmas, the sadness of ending up in a cemetery on a holiday, and the pain of getting through that first year.

“They tell me it gets better,” she said with a sigh.

“Can I give you a hug?” I asked shyly before I turned to go. She nodded eagerly, and one small sob escaped her as I squeezed her shoulders tightly.

I might look back on that first Christmas and remember it as the year I did so many things so badly, the year I forgot to feed my family. Or I might just remember it as the Christmas I learned what it meant to reach out to a hurting stranger.   

Mary Potter Kenyon, Refined By Fire: A Journey of Grief and Grace

From the Editor

Hello again.  It has been a while since a newsletter has gone out.  We had a couple of surgeries that left us short staffed in the office for a few months, but are back on track and plan to start putting out newsletters on a monthly basis again (we might even try to squeeze in an extra in December since we have been away!).  We have also been in the process of a website redesign, which does mean at times that things are down or slow while we work out all the bugs.  We are grateful for all your patience and for those of you who have called in with orders when the website was temporarily down.  We hope to be at full speed and maneuverability soon.   

Mission Statement

MISSION: The Grief Watch mission is to offer spiritual, emotional and other support to persons who are grieving and the professional caregivers who assist them.  For more information about us please visit our info page.

GW Facebook
GW Twitter
Email Us
GW Website
Copyright © 2017 Grief Watch, All rights reserved.


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list