Christmas joy and grief
Holidays, especially Christmas, bring joy and merriment. But as life unfolds, the loss of loved ones can turn celebration into disconsolation.
Most adults have felt the pain of losing someone: a parent, grandparent, sibling or even a child. When the death of a loved one happens around Christmas, the pain is only magnified.
I’m old enough to have experienced the loss of both parents and many other relatives. My mother, Inez, who suffered a stroke in the summer of 2001, died on Dec. 15, 2001, just 10 days before Christmas. One month later, my father, Joe, died.
To complicate things that year, I was transitioning from a job in Superior to Milwaukee. Thanks to friends in Superior, I was able to avoid packing up and moving our belongings.
Coping with the loss of a loved one during the Christmas season is a topic that groups such as funeral homes offer to the public this time of year.
“The holidays are difficult because there are a lot of expectations placed on us,” a counselor at Blaney Funeral Home told me in 2009. “The season sparks us with the reminder that it’s Christmas and our loved one is not with us. We are supposed to be full of holiday spirit, but at times we are not able to muster any happiness.”
Outreach to loved ones, especially seniors, was also the topic of an editorial I wrote a few years ago: “Loneliness can be one of the hardships of growing older, especially when a spouse dies, and it may be intensified during the holiday season.” (The video below illustrates this point.)
Recently, my two best friends, Kevin George and Ken Vigil — who grew up in my hometown of Ogden, attended college with me and both stood in my wedding — lost a parent. You can say we share that parental grief. But we also have in common the loss of another close friend, Riley Beckstead.
Kevin, Ken and Riley all attended Bonneville High School in Ogden (I attended Ben Lomond High) and were cross country and track stars. Our paths crossed at the College of Eastern Utah and at Utah State University, where I was married at St. Jerome’s Chapel in 1982.
Riley, a musician, pole vaulter and budding poet and philosopher, was my best man. In 1992, he died of brain cancer. Riley’s death was really my first close-up experience with grief. Kevin, Ken and I were pallbearers at Riley’s funeral.
A few days ago, I found a Christmas letter Riley had written to me and my wife Laurie. It was written as a poem, with stanza and rhyme, chronicling our friendship over the years. Riley was 32 when he died. His abbreviated life — sans all of the memories with me, Kevin and Ken that could have been — has stayed with me. Every Christmas, when Laurie and I place ornaments on our tree, we are reminded of Riley by the homemade ornament he gave us, which features his photo.
A homemade Christmas ornament of my late friend Riley Beckstead, left, and a Christmas letter he sent a few years before his death.
This Christmas, there will be moments when memories of Christmases past bring sadness. It could be triggered by a song, a photograph or a letter written by a loved one.
A suggestion from the Blaney Funeral Home counselor: do not be afraid of the memories or of talking about what you are feeling. Family and friends want to hear from you and follow your lead in mentioning the deceased, she said. A good way to keep memories alive is to have a candle that is always lit in a prominent place in the home with a picture of your loved one next to it.
Is there some special way you remember a loved one at Christmas? If so, share it in the comments below.
