Holidays After Loss, Tip #9 - Limit your time on social media Facebook and Instagram are full of people with shiny lives and whole families, especially during the holidays. When you find yourself feeling sad or resentful, close your computer. Call a dear friend ...

Holidays After Loss, Tip #8 – Allow yourself to hold the both/and Grieving and grateful ... joy and sorrow ... empty and full. Longing for those who are missing and cherishing those who remain. #holidaysafterloss

"During the 1st holiday season after my son Eric's death 26 years ago, I gritted my teeth & pushed forward. But in time, I was able to unearth the ornaments we'd given him every year since birth, creating a collection he'd take into his future. A future Eric would never have.

Holidays After Loss, Tip #7 - Prioritize yourself The holidays are stressful, even in the best of circumstances. There are so many demands on our time and so much to get done. Family members have competing ideas about how and where to gather and who to include ...

Holidays After Loss, Tip #6 - Do what you can and skip the rest *No energy to create a holiday card? Give yourself permission to take the year off. *Overwhelmed by the idea of shopping for presents for Christmas or Hanukkah? Give gift cards instead.

"But grief can be another day on the wheel, when paradoxically a blue sky can unveil & a white egret appears in the branch. I have named him Doy after my youngest son, whose pet name was Doy. He will fly and land with me as I walk beside the river in the valley behind our home.

Holidays After Loss, Tip #5 - Make time to sit with your grief During the holidays, it's easy to get distracted and start moving in too many directions at once because acknowledging how much you miss your son, your sister, your spouse can feel hard, hard, hard ..

Holidays After Loss, Tip #4 - If you don't think you can be present or pleasant, it's okay to be absent Expectations are everywhere this time of year, especially within our families. But after losing a beloved, it's ok to put your needs first. If it feels too hard, you don't have to go. Really.

Holidays After Loss, #3 - Remember the ones who are no longer here Say their names. Tell their stories. Offer a toast in honor of their beautiful, too-short lives. It's a gift to hear our loved ones' names and see them exactly where they've always been and still should be. #holidaysafterloss

Holidays After Loss, Tip #2 - Be kind to yourself You won't be able to do as much as you did before your loved one died. Whether you do a lot, a little or ignore the holidays altogether, know that you are doing the best you can. Let it be enough. #holidaysafterloss

Holidays After Loss, Tip #1 -- Think ahead Before the holidays arrive, consider how you need to navigate them this year. Attend a small gathering, hang out with family or be with friends and chosen family instead? Or, would you rather leave town and avoid the season altogether?

After the death of one of our essential people, the holidays can become a daunting, devastating time. There's an empty chair (or 2) at the table. You may lack the energy or desire to even acknowledge the holidays. You might feel alone or be estranged from some of your family ...

Gentle reminders for navigating Thanksgiving. The day will pass. You can get through it. Breathe ...

"Let go of .. what you “should” do for the holidays & ask what you want to do .. What part of the holiday is most meaningful to me? What may have worked in the past that doesn’t feel right anymore? What are some things I could drop to make my life easier?" www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...

"The skies were dark, and it was pouring rain. Yet there was so much light in that room. As we went around the circle, I was reminded of the way stories heal. The hope they offer, the path forward, the reminder that we are never, ever alone." findyourharbor.com/there-is-alw...

"What happens after someone you love dies? It's really hard for those who remain behind. And it can be hard for a long, long time. That's all right. It takes as long as it takes." So begins Diane Namm's beautiful, comforting book for young children ...

"When she died, we felt what we call the Wind of Wisdom & Light rise from her & blanket the skies. Her Wind of Wisdom & Light tickled the stars, making them laugh w/a sparkling brightness impossible to ignore. She was a lava flow of love flooding the world.." findyourharbor.com/tribute/

"I wasn’t prepared for the way the two hospitals and everyone we knew there disappeared as destinations after Jimmy died. I was still welcome in the building, encouraged to visit in fact. But there was no longer a reason to go." findyourharbor.com/mapping-what...

".. every item bears Jimmy’s fingerprints or handwriting. Each scrap of paper or object has a story, a memory or an act of kindness associated with it .. gentle reminders of the smallest truths about his interests, habits and passions, the essence of who he was." findyourharbor.com/what-we-keep/

"They started as they always did, by each saying a name. These names represented a loved one who died—the reason why each person joined E-Motion, a Boston-based running group for people grieving the death of a loved one." www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/a683...

"Life is as much awful as it is beautiful, and the worst can and will happen, even to those who least deserve it. It’s an honor to sit at the jagged edge of someone’s pain. To witness how much they love the person who was taken from them." findyourharbor.com/be-still/

"When Jimmy died, I thought there would be a sameness, an unrelentingness to my grief that would persist year after year. But to my surprise, I have found every year to be different. Instead of a well-worn path, I am finding my way as I go." findyourharbor.com/all-i-can-no...

“I was put in the role of doing whatever I could to make the experience easier for Jimmy & my parents…the transition from when he was alive & when he died w/him being my only sibling, suddenly the attention was all on me & that transition was so jarring.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnuL...

"Unlike the first stages of grief I experienced, which cling to the past, this new stage occupies the present. I say 'occupies' because it seizes the present with both arms, bringing with it a strange, surprising joy." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/27/o...

"When I get to Flinders Island, I will begin my own memorial days. I am taking something that our culture has stopped freely giving: the right to grieve. To shut out the world and its demands. To remember my love and to feel the immensity of his loss." www.amazon.com/Memorial-Day...

"So here I am. Still here more than a decade after Jimmy’s death, celebrating the age he should have lived to see. Wondering what he would be doing, who he would have become. Remembering how he lived and the way we who love him carry him with us still." findyourharbor.com/age-old/

"Start with loss. Lose everything. Then lose it all again. Lose a good woman on a bad day. Find a better woman, then lose five friends chasing her. Learn to lose as if your life depended on it. Learn that your life depends on it." www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/155104...

"Grief changes the air around it. It thickens it, slows it down ... I looked at your second backpack then and saw it for what it was: not just extra weight, but the embodiment of something much heavier. Memory, carried not out of obligation, but love." www.offassignment.com/articles/mag...

"But that day in August, Robert walked by my house and sang to me (“sail on, silver girl, sail on by”) as I was missing a person I loved, one I had never expected to meet, much less turn out to be a woman who loved me ferociously and gave me so much." ~ Jan Haag findyourharbor.com/moonstruck/

"Observing the tree's acceptance of her loss, the release that makes way for growth and rebirth. The strength to stand tall when stripped of everything and only her essence remains. Like the cherry tree, I am built to birth my own joy ..." findyourharbor.com/the-cherry-t...

"I will never know how Buster hears the unseen, but I think it begins with his willingness to sit motionless and peer into the darkness. To listen intently, patiently, until he can decipher what he's hearing, the need to know greater than the fear of what he might uncover." findyourharbor.com/still/

"I started to wonder if I was just in denial or actually losing my grip on reality and which one was worse. Part of me didn't care. There were so many days when it felt as if my very survival hinged on Jimmy not be fully gone, so I'd lean into the feeling." findyourharbor.com/dark-surprise/

It found a reason to keep going ...

"I am the product of a childhood with a sibling and an adulthood without one ... My life was shaped as much by my brother’s absence as by his presence—and that, too, is a kind of relationship." www.yahoo.com/news/article...

"I sometimes overlook how his interactions with us are shaped by regret over things he wishes he had done differently, and his sorrow over things he wishes he still could do. But they are also shaped by the realization that today he has another chance." www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/s...

Losing a parent is like driving through a plate glass window ...

"For the nights can be long and filled with shadows, and sometimes terrible unexpected waters will rise. Somewhere someone needs help. Send love. It matters." Carrie Newcomer grateful.org/resource/sen...

"My first teachers in the aftermath of Jimmy’s death were the parents whose children took their own lives. They helped me understand the way circumstances & context influence everything from other people’s reactions to whether the casseroles showed up." findyourharbor.com/context-is-e...

"The❓of 'why' punches me in the gut every time. Because there is an accusation hidden in the 3 letter word. If there is a reason why, then there is something a friend, a mother, a father, a sister could have done to prevent Julia from ending her life.” www.wow-womenonwriting.com/downloads/pr...

"There is a beautiful flow when you let go of caring about what he remembers or arguing about what’s real. When someone is traveling to a different land, why not join him? I also love ... knowing he’ll forget most of what you say. There are endless second chances." www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/o...

You are not the darkness you endured ...

"I recently lost my closest childhood friend. She was an important part of my life for 50 years, and her death left me reeling. I feel as if I’ve lost much more than a good friend. I’ve lost a large chunk of my past, and my future, as well ..." www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...

"If you have drowned in sorrow and still have somehow found a way to breathe, please, lead us. You are the one with the crumbs we need, the ones we will use to find our way back to the home of our hearts." ~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer ahundredfallingveils.com/2025/06/13/p...

"I see heartbreak as the most proportional response to the state of the world–to say I love you is to say my heart breaks for you & this sentiment resonates within all things, bringing a clarity to both the world before us and the world beyond the veil." www.theredhandfiles.com/its-been-ten...

"My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined ...

"I think of the times I sat watching Jimmy and Dan have these conversations, the way both of my children soaked up these moments with their father, how much Jimmy would have loved to be part of this one." findyourharbor.com/here/

"Grief is suffering, tailored ..."

"With a heavy heart & yet a joyful spirit, Carolyn Glickstein – 80 yrs young – teaches pickleball as often as possible at a Brickell-area high-rise condominium. It was at that same condo where her son Michael was found dead ... just over four years ago." www.miamiherald.com/sports/artic...

"The more I sat, the more of Jimmy's energy returned, expelling some of my grief and helping me to see how sacred the space is. I discovered that his presence is here, if only I am willing to remain quiet long enough to feel it." findyourharbor.com/in-his-room/