Light a Candle...
 As
I reflect on the approaching holiday season I am reminded
of the theme which Bereaved Families used for a memorial
service a few years ago. "It is better to light one candle
than to curse the darkness." Like many old saying, there
is a great deal of wisdom and truth in these words, but
much that also goes unspoken. It is better to light a candle
than to curse the darkness!
Never is that so evident now
as we move into the holiday season. This is the time of
the year when there is the greatest distance between what
you as a bereaved person feel inside and what the world
is trying to project. You feel the pain of 'holidays past'
with all the acuteness which time doesn't seem to be able
to erase at this time of the year. Yet the outside world
is promoting joy, peach and good will. Never is the gap
so wide - never are the inside and the outside so far apart.
It is so important to allow
yourself to experience the feelings of grief, but you can
easily feel overwhelmed at this time of year. Remember,
that as well as feelings beings, we are think, doing, physical
and spiritual creatures! Many of you have told me that,
if you were only to follow your feelings at this time of
year you could easily be overwhelmed. So what can help you
as you struggle to light a candle rather than to focus on
feelings exclusively and get locked into cursing the darkness?
You’ve told me that planning
ahead so that the holiday has some predictable structure
to it has been helpful to many of you. It has also reinforced
the fact that this holiday period is time limited - that
it will end and a new frame of time will take over! Some
change to past rituals has also been important to many of
you so as to give the present a different face from holidays
past. Being with friends who give you permission to be yourself,
such as other bereaved parents and siblings, is also helpful.
Many of you feel it is easier
to be at a holiday gathering if you give yourself permission
to have an ‘escape hatch’ when you feel you’ve had enough.
As you have told me, setting boundaries, saying ‘no’ and
doing only as much as you can feel you can, is critical.
Once again, keep expectations realistic!
If this is the ‘first year’
for you, remember that you are in the thoughts and prayers
of many Bereaved Families. Those of you who have lit many
candles and chosen to do so rather than to only curse the
darkness, tell me that it is possible to do so and that
it doesn’t become easier, just not as hard. January is not
far off.
Reprinted with permission of David Wright,
Consultant BFO-Metro Toronto
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