The Strain and Drain of Grief at Christmastime

Photo by Wisnu Prayoga on Unsplash

Definitely the unfairest thing about loss is the other-worldly experience had at times of celebration; when fun and merriment and peace are enjoyed all around.

I recall times, everywhere I went, of reminders of what I no longer had; in the shops, driving on the roads, entering libraries, going to parks — everywhere people were they seemed to be experiencing a life I could no longer relate with. Their joy stank. The ease they possessed reminded me of what I’d lost.

But grief is more than that. It’s more than envy for what you no longer, at that point, have.

Grief couldn’t care less to be honest with what others have. When you’re grieving, you care abundantly for what you don’t have. Grief is the subsumption of loss. Thoughts are very much, most of the time, lost to the joy others are enjoying. Thoughts are subsumed in the inescapable feelings that strain your own sanity — the overwhelming fear you’ll sink into the abyss of insufferable sorrow. The length of the grief journey is a drain that cannot be ultimately resolved until resolution is discovered in some far-off land of new arrival.

But such a new arrival may as well be another lifetime away even though that’s the only hope that keeps us afloat. So bizarre is the grief experience that you live continually in the tension of two unreal realities — between a despair you cannot accept and a hope that isn’t yet real.

Christmastime ruffles the experience of grief, because of the pleasant memories that are estranged to the present experience. The hope we must hold onto is it won’t always be like this. And yet associations to grief at Christmastime cannot be resolved in such a conventional way.

If grief is going to be an ongoing process, and at times it is, if the memory of our loved one or what we lost is that significant, we will need to build a suitable requiem. We will need a way of converting what we have lost into a burden of celebration. And yes, that which seems unlikely is possible.

In the long run, there are infinite ways of doing the grief journey, and the commonest input is the search for recovery. It doesn’t matter how we get there. We just need to survive the strain and drain of it. And at Christmastime, especially, we must be gentle and patient with ourselves. There will be pain, and that which we prepare for won’t feel quite as bad.

Here is my prayer for you:

God, I am thankful for the experiences of two consecutive very tough Christmases. I was not thankful then, but I am thankful now. I am thankful because when life is well, and the strain and drain of grief is over, You remind me of what others could be suffering. Be there with them. Assure them of a peace that converts to the ability not to be swamped with sorrow at this time. Revive them the day after they’ve fallen into the abyss. May snippets of joy be had, even amid a season so full of fear and sorrow. And may hope abide when despair clings. Amen.