When New Year’s Eve is hard: Grieving mom shares how she gets through the holidays
Those who have suffered traumatic losses, including the death of a loved one by violence or the loss of a child — or, in the case of COVID, those who could not be with their loved ones when they died — are more likely to experience. I did not know such a thing had a name when my son died. It wasn’t until many years later that I recognized my pattern of isolating myself in the years after his death fit the textbook pattern of complicated grief. It took time, but I eventually found a path forward.
Sometimes I ignore the holidays altogether. I was delighted to discover that there’s a name for this: JOMO, or the Joy of Missing Out. I feel a certain solidarity with others who have decided to do less, sparkle less, buy less, make less, stress less. And the paradox, or perhaps miracle, of the holidays is that it’s that very empty space that lets some form of holiday spirit shine in.
Before the pandemic, I would sometimes go tango dancing on New Year’s Eve. Argentine tango music, with its underlying ache and lyrics that embrace all the complex joys and sorrows of life, felt exactly right on this night. Though I mostly didn’t understand the words, I understood the music and moving to it was a comfort, as was wrapping myself in the warmth of a tango embrace.Not trying to make things to go back to the way they were is my new tradition.
One of my last memories of my son, who was deaf, is of him playing Santa Claus in his first grade school play. He was thrilled to get the part and came home, eyes shining, signing excitedly about the cotton-ball beard he’d made for his costume. We made our Christmas presents later that week, rolling candles out of sheets of beeswax and pressing them in glitter, the way I had done with my mom as a child. I still light beeswax candles on winter nights.
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