Being with grief at Christmas

An invitation to be excessively gentle with yourself

Photo by Laura Nyhuis on Unsplash

This is for you, if you have known loss. If you know that a moment of joy can suddenly cause a sharp pain in your heart; can touch on a well of sadness that stirs in the depths of your belly. Sadness so deep and dark you dare not touch it. You dare not speak it’s name.

So you swallow, and force a smile. You tighten your muscles to try to keep it in. You reach for a drink, and another, and wonder why it doesn’t take away the pain. You watch a Christmas movie, feeling seasick. Fear clattering inside your chest. Why, oh, why won’t it take away the pain? The Christmas tree, the lights, the shops full of sweet delights - why does the sadness stir now, when this is supposed to be a joyful time? Everyone else seems happy and joyful.

What is wrong with me? Why can’t I escape? Why isn’t the drink working? Why isn’t sleep working? What can I do to take it away oh please tell me what I can do to take away this sadness that is rising and rising and if I look at it, if I speak it’s name, it will engulf me, crash over me, send me spinning downwards and drown me. I will be lost to it - forever.

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a poem

Oh Grief, you found me again.
You, who saw my husband wind
the twinkling lights on the tree,
watched my son lift a bauble, giggle,
and turned to see me trying
to smile. You, who caught
me by the heart and shook
me til I gasped.

You, who were there when my mother stuck
stars on the gift tags, wrote
‘I love you, I love you xxx’
said: ‘make sure you keep the tags.’
You, who were there when I walked up the hill
to school. When I turned to my teacher and saw terror
on her face.

Oh Grief, I had to forget you.
I have found
different kinds of pain.
I have tried –
so many things, to keep you away.

Now there’s no more numbing
no more running
no more hiding.
Still –
and yet, still – each year - I don’t see you coming til

Here you are
strong as love
shaking my tender heart.

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Photo by Sonny Wolf on Unsplash

I wrote those words December 2022, almost 22 years after my mother died one January night. The following year was the first year I was brave enough to finally turn towards my grief. I was only able to do this because I was sober. Because in getting sober I had made a promise to myself: no more numbing out. No more running away. Stay, Ellie. This time, you have to stay.

So, if you too know grief, if you know loss, Christmas may be a really hard time. Please be excessively gentle with yourself as John O’ Donahue writes in his poem ‘For one who is exhausted, a blessing.’ He says:

There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

This seems like good advice for this time of year when there seems to be a scramble to fill these dark, cold days with busyness. Of course we are afraid of the darkness. Of course we light candles and fill our homes with greenery, as we have done for hundreds of years. Of course we buy and eat and drink and dress up and go to parties. Of course we pretend that we are gods; that we are in control, and will never die.

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Recently I have found myself longing for darkness. The darkness that covers the woods and the hills. Where the owl hoots and the night creatures scuttle. I want to look into the dark space the trees bend around and feel a tingle of fear. A place where I don’t belong and yet, some part of me belongs. The part that wants to crawl into the damp leaf mulch and dig into the earth with naked hands. For I have been here many times, in the deepest dark, and somehow I have found my way out.

O’Donahue’s poem ends this way:

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

To know grief is to know love. To know darkness is to know ourselves.

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