We are supposed to be cheerful and happy at Christmas, for the commercials and TV specials tell us so. It’s as if we are supposed to have two lives: the real, messy, human life that we live eleven months out of the year, and the Christmas life that we put on during Advent. This is, of course, ridiculous. We are all human beings. We experience loss. We grieve. And, as much as we may want to, it is extremely hard to take a holiday from grief.
It’s no secret that this can be an especially hard time of the year for those who are grieving. The holidays bring with them memories, sometimes fond and sometimes painful, of those we have lost. It can feel like rubbing salt in our wounds. We cannot, and should not, run from this, or try to constantly hide our emotions behind a false mask of happiness. To do this is to deny our humanity.
