If I know anything about grief it’s this:

1. It sucks.
2. Its timing is always terrible.
3. It is triggered by the holidays. Any of them. All of them.

Grief in this life is unavoidable. Whether we resist it or not, someday grief will come for us. It is universal. It is both extremely unfair and undiscriminating.

Sometimes grief is giant, and seemingly insurmountable. Sometimes it’s small, quiet, and hidden. Sometimes it’s bittersweet, a reflection of a life lived well that was full of love. Sometimes it’s dark and tragic and bottomless. Sometimes it lasts months and years. Sometimes days. Sometimes a lifetime.

And sometimes grief is stupid and terrible and just straight up sucks.

Then there is grief during the holidays… For many, holidays bring mood-boosting things like gifts, decorations, holiday music, and treats. For others, holidays also bring back bittersweet memories of times past, when loved ones were still here to physically celebrate with us.

In other words, holidays are STUG magnets. What is a STUG, you ask? STUG is an acronym for Subsequent Temporary Upsurge of Grief. In non-psychobabble, they’re basically the feelings of grief that come after the initial loss. They can come out of nowhere, or on days when you expect them, such as the anniversary of someone’s death or a holiday filled with traditions you once shared together.

If grief is an ocean, then STUGs are the waves: as you journey along grief’s shore, eventually you might stop noticing the waves as the loss becomes integrated into your day-to-day life. Then the holidays come, or you find an old picture, or hear their favorite song and a large STUG splashes over you, leaving you shocked, cold and maybe even angry.

STUGs come and go throughout our lives, because grief has no definitive end date. There is no designated period of time when you wake up one morning and say, “Ah! I have completed my requisite grieving! It is over now.” Instead, we learn to live with our grief, integrating it into our daily lives.

Over time maybe you’ll stop thinking of your deceased loved one 24/7. And maybe the excruciating, heart-rending pain of their absence becomes a dull ache. Even still, they are a part of you. It’s normal and expected that you will miss them, off and on, and in varying degrees, throughout your life.

The Church tells us that when someone dies, our relationship with them lives on. We are closer to them now than when they were physically on earth. But since we are both a body AND a soul, we still grieve the loss of their physical body, even while we continue our spiritual connection with them. Though we can’t see them or touch them or hear them, we know that they can hear us, and that they are praying for us. They are rooting for us until we can rejoin them in Paradise.

Our love lives on, though different, and will never end.

If you are grieving this Christmas, you are not alone. Perhaps it’s a small comfort, but it bears repeating: you are not alone. And you are so, so loved.

May the love of God and the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ
bless and console us
and gently wipe every tear from our eyes:
in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Resources:

Prayers for coping with Death and Dying

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

Good Grief by Lolly Winston