Parenting Through the Holidays After Losing Your Mom
The holidays are such a special time of year, but when you’ve lost your mom, the person who made your holidays loving and memorable, they can feel impossible.
Ever since I lost my mom a few years ago, Christmas has hit a little differently. It brings back so many memories, being a kid, those teen years, and later on, watching her with my own kids. So many sweet, irreplaceable moments.
In the beginning, I’d just fall apart every time those memories came up (which was all the time).
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I’d suddenly find myself reminiscing about the times she’d surprise me as a child, taking a day off from work to be home at lunchtime, or the way she’d call my kids by their special nicknames. She was the one constant, loving person with me my entire life, my biggest cheerleader, confidant, and best friend in every sense. There was an emptiness inside me that verged on inconsolable. Eventually, I tried to push the feelings down, thinking maybe that would make it easier, but it wasn’t any better; it was just different.
There is no rulebook for losing your mom. How can there be? It is an immediate and final chapter in your life that can’t be negated. But, there are some things that can help you through it.
Some Ways to Get Through the Holidays
There should be a class that we all have to take on how to survive when you lose your mother. It should include everything from practical things you need to do for the funeral while you’re still in shock to how to literally put one foot in front of the other and take yourself to work again and back into your life.
Over the years, I learned a few things that have been comforting. If this is your first year without your Mom (or your Dad), these things might help ease the burden just a tiny bit.
Look to Others Who Have Been There
My friend, Helen, who lost both of her parents, told me that in the very early days, those first birthdays and holidays would feel raw and abrasive, but eventually, I’d find a way to celebrate Mom in those special times. Helen arranges a bouquet of her mom’s favorite flowers on the anniversary of her passing each year. Last week, I hung up Christmas ornaments with my Mom’s name. I also play her favorite Christmas tunes.
You can also still look to your Mom or Dad for support. I have always said that my mother taught me everything I know about how to be a good mother, and even after her passing, when the weight of the world felt so heavy that I wanted to melt into obscurity, I still looked to her to learn how to deal with her loss.
As kind and caring as she was, she was also vehemently strong. Her strength is in me, I know it. It’s a daily task to summon it up. I can’t always do it, but I’ll keep trying because I am the mother of three beautiful beings who still need me and whom my mother absolutely adored. I know she’d expect nothing less.
Talk about Mom or Dad (and Nanny or Grandma) Often
I can’t count how many times I would want to call my mom and tell her my good news, or what my kids were up to. I’d see a TV show or hear a song that was her favorite and tell my kids, ‘Nanny would love this’, ‘Nanny would be laughing right now’, or the ever-funny ‘I know what Nanny would say right now!’” While so painful in the beginning, these moments have become comforting, a way to acknowledge her in our everyday lives. Not only do I regularly do this now, but my kids do, too. We laugh more now when we stumble upon those things than we cry. Speaking of….
Cry and Let Your Kids Cry… or Laugh
The first holiday is going to be hard. You might feel like falling apart while braving the day to make a special memory for your kids. But find time for yourself in the day to let it all out. Whether it’s in the shower or at night after the kids are in bed, getting your feelings out is part of the healing process. Also, remember kids process grief differently; some might act out and be angry or cranky, and others might cry a lot, while some might even laugh. It’s all normal, and it’s all OK.
Just know this: eventually, you will embrace the good times again.
Many times, I can still feel Mom with me. There have been so many signs from her that I know without a doubt was her way of comforting me or saying hello. There were also times over the past few months when she would make me laugh, and I know it was her, totally and fully. When I allow myself to embrace the quiet, I can almost hear her nudging me along, telling me she is always with me, and for the moment, I feel better.
They say that in death, the spirit does not die; it simply changes and leaves the body. Apparently, the spirit that loved potato salad, dogs and cats, a hearty laugh, and pretty pink flowers still exists, just as it did in the body, only it’s in a whole new, yet nearby realm. This thought comforts me.
In the end, the whole purpose of living is love. When I find myself feeling down, I try to remember that, yes, I absolutely miss my Mom and always will, but the truth is, I am the luckiest person to have had her at all.
Sometimes, I’ll talk to Mom, and I know she hears me. So I am trying fervently, desperately, to adjust to this new relationship with Mom on the other side. It is the very hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Many times, in those moments, through unbridled tears, I hear her saying, “Danielle, I am right here.”
I know you are, Ma.
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