Helping hands: ‘Healing through the holidays’ sessions focus on navigating difficult time

The holidays can be challenging when you are grieving. While co-leading a loss education and support group, I worked with a couple who experienced multiple pregnancy and early infant losses. As the holidays approached one year, they decided to do things differently and instead of gathering with family, they chose to stay home and spend time together, just the two of them.

Another time I worked with a woman at a retirement community who recently lost her husband. As she prepared for the holidays, she intentionally chose not to decorate her apartment because she felt there were enough decorations in her community and she wanted to be able to return home and leave the festive surroundings outside.

And then there was a woman who lost her husband and was clear that she wanted to decorate her home. Those decorations brought her joy.

There is no one way to navigate the holidays when you’re grieving. What is important is finding your way and seeking balance. Balance between remembering and honoring your loved one while also engaging with the living and your sense of wholeness.

I can feel anxiety levels increasing now as people who have lost loved ones think about the holidays. Not only are they feeling the primary loss of missing their loved ones’ presences, but they are also feeling multiple secondary losses as the result of the deaths. For example, the loss of how they used to celebrate.

In partnership with Juniper at Brookline, Koch Funeral Home is offering a four-week “Healing through the Holidays” series for individuals feeling these losses. The words in the title help describe the intent of this program. Grief is the healing and it is through the grieving that we heal.

“Healing through the Holidays” is an education and support/discussion group with time to share and learn about grieving, healing and your own sense of wholeness through the holidays. Facilitated by Brenda Oyler Kim, MSW, LCSW and me, this group will meet on Tuesdays, Nov. 18, Nov. 25, Dec. 2, and Dec. 9, from 4:30-6 p.m. at Juniper at Brookline, 1950 Cliffside Drive, State College.

We hope you will join us and find, as David Kessler and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote: “There is wonder in the power of grief. We don’t appreciate its healing powers, yet they are extraordinary and wondrous. It is just as amazing as the physical healing that occurs after a car accident or major surgery. Grief transforms the broken, wounded soul, a soul that no longer wants to get up in the morning, a soul that can find no reason for living, a soul that has suffered an unbelievable loss. Grief alone has the power to heal.”

Jackie Naginey Hook, MA, is a spiritual director, celebrant, and end-of-life doula. She coordinates the Helping Grieving Hearts Heal program through Koch Funeral Home in State College. For more information, please call 814-237-2712 or visit www.kochfuneralhome.com