I wrote a long time friend a letter today. The holiday seasons are approaching and her husband died earlier this year.  It is far too soon after his death for her to know about grief and the holidays. She is already feeling a great deal of pressure from her children. They want her to feel better and be well. They are afraid she is not doing very well because she is still so fragile and cries so often. They are full of advice and admonitions. They take her shopping so they can have her alone and talk to her about how she needs to feel and act. She shared all of that with me a few weeks ago, and as I listened to her, I kept thinking, just wait until the holidays. The pressure to be well and not ruin it for everyone else will intensify. 

The children mean well. They have the best motives in the world. They should not be judged because they simply do not know anything about grief. I am not sure they have dealt with their own grief, maybe their efforts at healing their mother whether she wants to be healed or not, is an effort to avoid their own pain. Constantly worrying about someone else can have delaying effect for a time, but their day will come and, when it does, they will begin to understand that grief is a process of facing a long series of firsts.

It began as the first day after the death, then it was the first week, the first time back in the house, the first time the family allowed her to spend the night alone. The first time she went to church without him. The first time she sees friends she has not seen since the death. 

Since my friend is a woman she is more likely to face the first time she has to buy car insurance or a tag for the car or a myriad of other duties he always just took care of and never told her how he did it. 

The first times are not only difficult, they never seem to end. She will soon learn that, after the first blur of firsts, they seem to come a little further apart, but they still come. The first wedding anniversary after the death, his birthdays will always be hard, but the first one is devastating. So many memories and too often no one to share them with.  The holidays bring their own kind of pressure and pain. 

We actually begin reacting to a first about a month before the event. The woman who served as my marketing director for many years had a son who died of suicide when he was sixteen. He died on April 2. She would start being edgy and moody about the first of March each year. She would not even know this was being caused by the anniversary until about the middle of March and then it would dawn on her that she was facing another April 2. The anticipation of the day was often worse than the day itself. She would brood over the loss and dread the day coming. Most of the time, she actually felt a sense of relief when the day finally came and she realized she would live over it once again. 

That same pattern seems to happen as we approach any of the major anniversaries or holidays. Dread and fear as we approach and then some sense of relief when it is here and especially when it is over.

My hope is that those who read this blog will share their first with the rest of us. Which ones hurt the most? Did the pattern of dread make the days before worse than the day itself? How did you cope with the firsts in your life? You may respond in the comments at the end of this blog, or you can write your experiences on the forum page. 

Sharing is the most powerful tool for healing.

If you would like to respond to this blog, please log in, type in your response in the Comments box and click save. I look forward to hearing from you.