Ep 06: Transcript
06. Reflections on First Milestones and New Traditions
Hi everyone, thanks so much for tuning in today. You can find us on social @the_griefcoach or check out our website www.thegriefcoach.co. Please follow us on Spotify and rate review and subscribe on apple podcasts, it makes a big difference. Thanks!
Really quickly before we get started I wanted to announce that we got our first bit of press this past week. Advice on what to say to someone grieving was picked up by Amazon Care’s newsletter! Amazon Care is a new venture they have providing healthcare in Seattle and they included advice from the first episode in their newsletter which is very exciting! I’m working on a few other press pieces so hopefully I will be able to announce more soon.
Let’s get into the episode for today. If you follow me on social, you may have seen that it was my dad’s birthday recently. Today I am going to talk to you a bit about what that first milestone and holidays after a loss and how to create new traditions.
I associate the end of December with my dad, for the past several years we celebrated his birthday together going to dinner and drinks in the city and then head out to CT where I would stay through the holidays. After my grandma passed away when I was 22, we moved the holiday celebration’s to my dads. Some years we were 12, some years we were almost 30. Drinks flowed, food was plentiful, and conversations went late into the evening.
A few years ago, my friends and I started coming out to my dads for New Years. I think all in all we did six years in a row. We were tired of the bar scene and paying $100+ for an open bar then never being able to get to the bar and it being crowded so we decided to make a weekend of it. New Years at my dads was a weekend trip that we could take and have delicious meals, good company and space. So because of all of this time at the end of December normally being spent with my dad, I have understandably been a bit sad this week.
I was really surprised at how I felt the past few days. I feel like I’m generally super comfortable talking about this loss but I didn’t want to talk about it at all the past few days. At all. A couple of family members called to check in and I just didn't want to talk and I couldn’t get myself to go there and I changed the subject. It was the first time since just after he died where I felt the stunned, numb grief. Which if you’ve experienced a loss you are probably familiar with. I really wasn’t expecting that feeling again because it had been so long. Normally in my day to day I feel sad, and I miss him all the time, but I can like get in touch with my feelings a little bit more and talk about it. The past few days it just didn’t feel real or right.
I want to talk about traditions changing due to a loss and how to honor grief in these new traditions. This year for my dad’s birthday my brother, sister and I went out to Cafe Luxembourg which is one of his favorite restaurants. I had put a special request in with the maitre d that we wanted to sit in the corner booth because it was his favorite table. When we arrived they told us that the entire staff knew why we were there and they were doing everything they could to get us his favorite table which I thought was so kind of them. At lunch we talked about dad, we talked about the upcoming holiday, and we talked about how we missed him. At the end of the meal our waiter came up to us and told us the meal had been taken care of by two of our family members and my brother and I both burst into tears. The thing about being in a fragile space is that you can hold it together and just keep going which I’m sure is a feeling many of you are familiar with, until something unexpected happens and you lose it. We talked about how much we missed him and we cried. I briefly changed the subject because I didn’t want either of us to have a meltdown in public.
For Christmas we stayed in the city because most of our family is here. We had dinner with cousins at a restaurant on the upper east side on Christmas eve and then my brother slept over in my studio. We had planned the sleepover as neither of us wanted to wake up alone on Christmas morning. In the morning we went to soul cycle, which is something I have been doing for a few years on Christmas day and that was really nice. I cried in soul cycle which is a great place to cry. We went home and baked cookies then headed out to our cousins in Queens where there would be 21 for dinner. While all of this was lovely, and it was great to see family, for me it didn’t feel like Christmas at all. I’ve checked in with my brother and sister and they said it did feel like Christmas to them and for that I’m grateful. As soon as we got in the car on the way home I cried. I so associated my dad’s house with the holidays that not being there made it not feel like the holidays. So something I’m sure many of you are familiar with is not only grieving a person but grieving a place.
When my grandma died the holiday house switched from hers to my dads and that eventually felt normal. I think that we get used to new things and new places and new people. When I expressed anxiety around the upcoming holidays or missing the house people often say “You’ll make new traditions.” as a way to comfort me. Like yes, we will, but I really miss the old ones. I think this is something that doesn’t often get spoken about and people want to sweep under the rug. Of course, you miss the person the most but when someone dies it is super normal to miss places and traditions that you associate with them.
So how do we cope with this additional loss? As I mentioned I didn’t anticipate the type of grief that I would be feeling and underestimated how hard it would be. I think the honest answer is just to soldier through it and give yourself time and space where you need it. You need to respect the fact that you are grieving and whatever the first milestone is will be different and you will very likely feel like shit. I made sure to give myself more time to sleep, I kind of cleared my social calendar, made sure to have time to work out, and in what I think was a blessing was a bit sick so didn’t drink last week. At Christmas, I mostly hung out with my nieces and nephews because they are energetic and sweet and it’s easier. We played a bunch of board games and it was really fun.
I mentioned that on his birthday I really didn’t want to talk about the fact that he wasn’t there. Even though he very obviously wasn’t. One of the hardest exercises in grief is to let yourself be sad when you are trying to hold it together. If you can give yourself space to fall apart, do. I recognize that this is not something that everyone can do, but if you can I think it’s really important and cathartic. Write things down. Go on a walk. And let yourself be sad. Crying is good.
Alright thanks everyone for listening. You can find us on social @the_griefcoach and reach out to us at hello@thegriefcoach.co. Please rate, review, subscribe and I’ll talk to you next week! Thanks