The holiday season is a time for families to come together, a time to shop for the perfect gift for your loved one, a season of cookies, candy and all kinds of treats. Yet for families who lose a loved one during December, the pain seems a little more acute, the holiday festivities on TV and in the stores seem to mock them as they struggle to make it through the day, much less the holidays. There is no “Merry” or “Happy” and the month becomes a numb blur as they plan the wake, funeral and burial. Family joins together, but not to gather around the table and share stories of holidays past and create new memories together. While losing a loved one is always difficult, somehow when a death occurs in December, it seems as if the holidays will forever be dimmed by the memory of their loss.
Many funeral homes and cemeteries hold remembrance services around the holidays. They invite in speakers to offer tips for handling the holidays and place wreaths out on the graves. They focus on those they have served in the past and continue to be there for the newly bereaved. The focus is on the family at hand, yet in all of our daily routine, we also find the need to address how we feel during this season.
It is hard not to find your heart reaching out a little more when a family has just suffered a loss so close to the holidays. While we serve all of our families with compassion and care, some remain in our hearts forever. We think of them when we look back at our careers. Some of those stories are ones that are especially poignant because of the time of year when the death occurred. It is the young mother who has died from cancer just before Christmas and leaves behind three children, a husband and her parents wondering how they will make Christmas seem special for the young ones, while their own hearts are shattered. It is the widower whose wife of 62 years is laid to rest on December 23. It is the teenager who is suddenly killed in a car accident while out with her friends and is buried in her new holiday outfit.
We must find a way to cope with our own feelings while serving each family with the same level of professionalism we provide throughout the year. We are not robots, we are human and it is this compassion that leaves us with two options of handling our feelings – we can either step into the feeling or shut them off. Some may feel that to avoid compassion fatigue it is best to keep professional, yet impersonal. To keep a step away from any actual feelings about the situation and just “do your job.” I think moving closer to your own emotions allows you to address your feelings, rather than shut them down. Acknowledge what you are feeling and allow your emotions to inspire and guide you in the work you do, the way you approach your own family and how you handle your own comfort level when dealing with intense feelings.
Being in this industry changes how we approach each day. We no longer take a moment for granted, we don’t “put off for tomorrow” for tomorrow may never come. We hug our family a little longer, we treasure each simple moment for the miracle it is and, when we gather together to celebrate the holidays, we truly celebrate being together with those we love. The families we serve have taught us through their own grief to honor the “Merry and the “Happy” times. We don’t need to close our hearts off in order to handle the tough cases of loss during the holiday season. Instead we open our hearts more, take extra care of those we serve this month and vow to have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah and wish for a year ahead full of blessings and joy.