There's No Grief like Holiday Grief

Terri Irwin, wife of famed crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, said, “Your grief path is yours alone, and no one else can walk it, and no one else can understand it.”

A couple of years ago I lost my grandmother. I consider myself lucky to have gone 39 years in this world without losing someone that I love, and my grandmother was that person for me. Grief, from what I know of it now, is a peculiar process and one that I believe is unique to each person. The grief process - like spirituality or politics - is deeply personal.

Whether you’re a person like me who’s known very little of grief, or you’re a person that has grieved a lot over the course of their life, I’m here to tell you that however you process your grief, however you choose to grieve, is okay. And with the holidays upon us, it’s especially important to honor ourselves, those we’ve lost, and how we grieve.

My grandmother’s name was Edith Helen Coyer Santy. She was born in Barre, Vermont and at the age of 16 moved to Lyman, New Hampshire where she married my grandfather. My mother was her fourth child, the child her doctors told her she shouldn’t have, but did anyway. My grandmother didn’t listen to her doctors and chose to have my mother, regardless of the possible health consequences there might have been for herself.

And that stubbornness to listen to authority figures, that determination to walk her own path, speaks to who my grandmother was as a person. My grandmother’s mother died when she was three, and she was raised by her father after that. Henry Coyer was a stonecutter out of the quarries in Barre, and she loved him with a love I haven’t often seen in my life. There was a time in my life that my grandmother stayed with her mother’s parents a few towns away from Barre, and the love that my grandmother felt for her father was so fierce that at 8 years old she ran away and took a train to find him, all by herself and unbeknownst to any of her caretakers.

My grandparents were loggers and farmers their entire life. I can remember many stories of my grandmother, talking about the horses she worked with as she pulled logs out of the woods, or the cows that became pets who gave her hundreds of gallons of milk. My grandmother worked as much and as often as she could, from as early on as she could. I feel like I have an excellent work ethic, one I’ve learned from my parents...and that’s a heritage that obviously came down from my grandparents, and especially my grandmother. My grandmother fought more than I’ve ever seen anyone fight. She fought for what she wanted, she fought for her family, and she fought for what she felt was right. I’ll spare you the details, but she had a life of pain as well. Her life was made up of pain and fighting.

A stronger warrior I’ve never known.

My grandfather passed away in 1999 and I never knew him well. I didn’t have much of a childhood with my grandparents and it wasn’t until my grandmother lived on her own that I truly got to know her.

Over the past twenty years, I would do what I could as a grandson. I would visit when I could. I would help as I could. I would keep company as I could. And sadly, like anyone else who has lost someone, I beat myself up constantly for not being there enough when I had her. I know that attitude isn’t healthy, and most likely isn’t fair, but I have it anyway.

And as I continue to grieve her loss, I’m really trying to not beat myself up for not doing more. Being there more. Giving more of myself. Helping her more. I imagine that’s all part of the process, right?

It’s said there are 5 stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I’m not sure how much I agree with that, as grief is deeply personal for everyone, but I’ve probably touched on some of those stages throughout the past couple years since I’ve lost her.

I think that when we have a loved one that lingers on and fades away with sickness, those stages of grief either don’t happen at all, or they’re quick to pass. I wasn’t in denial about her transition. Any anger I felt was only directed at myself for not being there more. I didn’t bargain. I felt sad, sure, but not truly depressed. And acceptance finally came when I knew she wouldn’t be in pain anymore, that she wouldn’t have to fight. It also helps that, as a psychic medium, I have tangible evidence and demonstrations of the Unseen World, the place where we all pass on to as we leave this mortal world.

I recently saw a picture on social media that popped up as a memory. Back in 2011, when I was playing around with stained glass, I made my gram a stained-glass picture of the Old Man on the Mountain. For those who don’t know, the Old Man on the Mountain was a geological formation in the form of a face that hung over Franconia Notch in northern New Hampshire. My grandmother loved him and still talked about him constantly, even when he fell from the mountainside in 2003. Daniel Webster was famous for saying about the Old Man on the Mountain: “"Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."

And women.

I remember the Christmases that I would spend with my gram. She never had a lot of money and I always cherished the gifts she gave us - simple mittens or gloves, useful presents we could use and ones that she would make sure every one of her grandkids would get - she never wanted anyone to feel like there were favorites. And as I make it closer to this Christmas, I miss her.

And I know I’m not the only one who misses their loved ones during the holiday. That’s why I want to come to you with some suggestions and reminders about the holiday season, and how it’s interwoven with our own personal long grief processes.

First, throughout the stress of the holiday season (just like the rest of the year) please be sure to take care of yourself. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself so you can enjoy the season to the fullest. Be in touch with your needs as much as you can so you can address them and make sure those needs are met. If time by yourself is what you need, make sure you take it. Those who love you will understand and could probably do well by taking time for themselves as well. And if taking care of yourself includes talking about your feelings, find time and loved ones to help you through that - remember, those who love and care for you will be there for you. They could also use someone to talk with. Don’t worry about bringing people down - concentrate on lifting each other up through the process of sharing your feelings.

Second, allow yourself to feel all the feelings. Resentment and anger at yourself and others are natural by-products of the grieving process and shouldn’t be discounted. Allow yourself to feel these feelings, but do your best to move through them and not live there. You’ll be sad, you might even be cranky, and those feelings are okay and even a realistic part of that grieving process. Acknowledge them, acknowledge where they come from, and honor your loved ones and yourself by doing what it takes to move through them.

Third, and perhaps most important, find a way to honor them. Start a new tradition to honor their memory. I’m a big believer that we should have a place in our homes, an altar if you will, of our loved ones. Decorate this space with festive lights and decorations. Gather the family around and reminisce about your loved ones and your favorite memories of them. Make a donation to a local charity or nonprofit in their memory. There are countless ways we can move through our grief, and use the love of our departed, to help shine a bit of light into an all-too-often dark world.

So please - whenever you confront grief, and we all will, know that there is no textbook way for you to grieve. You may yell or hit things, you may sit quietly near a river, you may wail like you’ve never wailed before - but don’t beat yourself up. Don’t berate yourself. Your grief path is yours and yours alone.

Allow yourself to grieve this holiday season, however you need to. Take time for yourself, and feel your feelings. Honor those you’ve lost by creating new traditions and reminisce about them fondly, and with love. Gather the family and friends you do have around and honor them, and show them love.

I miss my gram. She worked up to her 87th year, until she couldn’t work anymore. Her passing wasn’t sudden - she was sick and fading for the last few months of her life. She held on. She fought. She was in pain. Among other things, she had a hiatal hernia so large that it pushed her stomach up into her chest, and when the doctors discovered that, they said there was no reason for her to be alive. She simply shouldn’t be alive considering how her internal organs were situated.

She held on. She fought. She was a warrior unlike any I’ve ever seen. My grandmother lived her values, shared with me her virtues, and helped shape me - and the rest of my family - into the people we are today.

I’m happy to have called her grandmother.

I will miss her over the holidays. And I will honor her. I will stay as strong as I can, and remember her as I can. I will keep those I hold dear close to me, and I will honor them.

That’s all she would have wanted for me.