It’s the last few days of the year, and everywhere I look on social media and television I see the lists of who died and how much people will miss them.
The problem? They are all famous.
It’s easy to make those lists. It’s not so easy to read them when you have lost someone really important this year, and they don’t appear anywhere as a loss to others. Kids are great at noticing those moments: “Why didn’t my (pet, dad, grandma,?) get on a list? Weren’t they important too?”
Those who have had those losses notice, but we don’t say anything. We typically keep those thoughts to ourselves and feel the hurt and missing and minimizing alone. It’s one more hard moment in a year of them after someone we love dies.
As a grief therapist this part of the year is like the last pain after firsts, Thanksgiving, and Christmas or Hanukkah or Eid. At least at those events it is possible to bring up your losses without feeling like they do not belong. But New Year’s? It’s almost like you are competing for the biggest loss, and it may feel wrong. Who wants to compete on that kind of “biggest loser?”
It’s also a time of folks posting and talking about how they will have a better year coming up, as if the calendar and two or three days will change everything. The expectations that kind of image creates is hard to cope with.
It is true that looking at waking each new day with a positive thought and ending with something you are grateful for can make changes in your outlook and even your brain chemistry. It can help with preventing deeper depression or sadness. But it’s not the cure for grief. And New Year’s is not the antidote to the sadness of a major loss in the year we are leaving. It’s a day. That’s all it is. Or, to quote Barry Manilow, “It’s just another New Year’s Eve, another night like all the rest.”
That next line is what I want all of us here on this site to look to, whether you are a griever or a therapist working with those who are grieving:
“It’s just another New Year’s Eve, let’s make it the best”- and add “The very best I can with what I have left in this moment.”
Let’s recap:
- You are not leaving your loss, or your loved one, goodbye in the last year.
- You do not have to make major changes simply because the calendar is changing, anymore than you would between June and July.
- Your loved one’s absence is every bit as important as the celebrities you will see listed everywhere. So stop watching those shows and lists.
- You have permission to heave a sigh of relief that the year they died is finally over. Just don’t add the expectation that such a change will change everything else.
- You have permission to say their name and name their loss out loud and in public.
- You can do some kind of remembrance at New Year’s if the need is there.
- You can add some changes, at any time, to help yourself with your outlook. It’s not magic. But it helps. We have research to support that.
- Eat a little bit of nutritious stuff between holiday bites
- Drink water
- Rest, even if you still don’t sleep through the night
- Keep company with those who do not drain you
- Walk, swim, go outside. Take the dog for a walk. Now dog? Adoptions are low cost at this time of year, and a shelter dog will need you as much as you might need them.
- Leave the resolutions out of your thought process
- Add in some positivity to your thought process
- Talk back ot any negative thinking, and to the words you have heard others say about how to manage your grief
- Look forward to reaching recovery, where you will still miss your loved one, but will not ache for them every moment of every day, and where you know you have those parts of them that matter locked u you, to share for the rest of your life, and all the New Year’s to come.
- Remember that in grief we may lose people, but we also add people who enrich us. Enter the New Year knowing they will be there through this next year, and that you matter to them, too.
Let’s go find 2020, shall we? And make it ours, and what we need and want it to be.
Jill Johnson-Young, LCSW
