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 Getting through the HolidaysCultural and Religious HolidaysHolidays in general, and the winter holiday season in particular, are always difficult times for bereaved parents. They bring back vivid personal memories of happier years and inspire painful daydreams about what might have been. Even worse, by giving the world permission to go out and have a good time, they seem to make a mockery of the bitter facts of our lives. We try to protect ourselves, we try to mind our own business, but even for those who are in no mood to celebrate there's no escape. The symbols of celebration are on every street corner and everywhere we go we are insistently exhorted to be merry, to be happy.Getting through the holidays is hard, there is simply no getting around it. We can make things a little bit easier for ourselves, however, if we are realistic both with ourselves and with relatives outside our immediate family about what we will and will not be able to do. The first step is to set priorities - to decide what is important to us about this holiday and what is not. Do we really need to send out greeting cards this year? Can we dispense with some of the baking and decorating? Would it be okay if someone else hosted the family dinner? Ideally, all members of the immediate family, including children, should be involved in the making these decisions. A change in the normal holiday tradition can help to minimize painful memories in a way that is surprisingly effective. We may want to consider spending the holidays away from home, for example. On the other hand, we may find that scheduling the festivities for a different day or attending religious services at a different place of worship is enough of a change. Perhaps we will discover that our experience of the holiday has deeper meaning when we reach out to others in need by making a donation in memory of our child, volunteering our time for a worthy cause, or inviting a foreign student or senior citizen to share our abundance. Who knows, perhaps we will decide to incorporate some of the alternatives we have explored into a brand new holiday tradition. Some hints:
Mother's Day and Father's DayUnderstandably, the two days set aside by our society to honor the state of parenthood are like proverbial salt rubbed in our wounds. For those of us who have no surviving children, these two holidays also bring up many questions. Will anyone acknowledge that we are parents? Will we allow ourselves to acknowledge that we are parents? In the stationery store there are Mother's and Father's Day cards for wives and husbands, for aunts and uncles, for people who have "been like a mother or father" to the sender. But there are no cards for parents like us. Are we parents? Of course we are! Daughters and sons do not stop being daughters and sons when their parents die. We are mothers and fathers whose children have died.
Special MemoriesHolidays provide opportunities for memorializing our children in special ways. Here are a few of the things we can do:
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