Holy days
Article published in Northampton Living
(January 2022)
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR
ROBERT ZUCKER
Grief Counselor, Consultant and Trainer
Consulting for the Journey
+1 413 695 4572
robzucker@gmail.com
robertzucker.com
Forty-eight years ago, on a cold morning in January, a secretary from the front office at the school where I taught came into my classroom and, without any explanation, handed me a telephone receiver attached to a long and twisty phone cord plugged into a phone jack by my desk. Over the din of classroom chatter, I held the phone to my ear as a stranger in a trembling voice told me that my father had drowned in a swimming pool at the Florida resort where he and Mom were vacationing. Suddenly, my classroom went silent, or so it seemed. I leaned up against a wall to keep from falling over. I never knew until that moment that my beating heart could cause the ground underneath me to shake.
For a time, fall and winter holidays were pretty rough. Especially difficult were Thanksgiving and Chanukah and even Christmas (even though we didn’t celebrate it). What made them so hard was that they brought me closer and closer each year to another new year without my dad.
When we’re grieving, holidays often feel tender and impossibly difficult. We talk about “getting through” an upcoming holiday as if it were a medieval torture chamber. We try to “manage” holidays as if they were an impossible task we must somehow master. Nevertheless, over time, I’ve come to love holidays again, and lately I consider all holidays to be holy days. Whether or not they have any religious or spiritual resonance for us, they are opportunities for celebrating life. Yet even in the best of times, hope may be tempered by disappointments; togetherness may be mixed with loneliness, and sorrow will often sit right beside joy.
With another new year approaching, here are some tips that may serve us all:
• Be still. Honor your alone time.
• Share memories with family and friends who can listen deeply, even to the hard stuff.
• Music can be a soothing balm as you grieve, so listen to music you love.
• While you may be expected to feel in a festive mood, if you’re sad and need to cry, that is perfectly normal, too.
• Holidays are exhausting and anxiety provoking especially when grieving. So for all you grievers out there, if planning to attend a holiday event, plan an exit strategy. Drive your own car so you can leave when you need to.
• Remember that holidays have a soulful essence. Consider what you love most about the days ahead. Perhaps you’ll discover something you can take delight in.
These days, when I reflect upon how my life has enfolded for nearly half a century now since my father’s death, I see my life mixed with both deep sorrows, and also incredible joys. My holidays are usually tempered by longing, yet filled with happiness and fun. And they’re always graced with gratitude. I wish the same for all of us as we find our way into yet another new year.
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