Thanksgiving

A very difficult area of functioning is coming to grips with the knowledge that there is absolutely no way of getting around holidays, despite your best efforts to avoid them.  And they are horrendous times for many years.  Their pain cannot be minimized.  But they still must be faced.

One family trying to avoid Thanksgiving – which was their dead child’s birthday as well – decided that family gatherings were no longer for them.  They would travel or simply ignore the festivities.  One day, the mother camp upon her 10-year-old daughter crying, and asked what was wrong.  “She was sobbing,” said the mother.  All the children in school had told of their plans, and made decorations for the holiday, and Lynn felt completely removed from her classmates.  She cried that she was not only deprived of her brother who was dead, but she couldn’t even have Thanksgiving dinner and a turkey!

I listened to her, and held her in my arms and cried.  What she was saying made sense.  After all, we still had 3 living children.  They also mattered.  That night I talked to my husband and we decided that no matter how bleak and empty it would be, we would have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

The mother said the family sat around the table, very quietly at first.  The father said grace, and thanked the Lord for the bountiful meal.  When he was through, their 10-year-old said she had something to add.  “I want to thank Mommy and Daddy for making this very special dinner for our family.  And most of all, I want to thank you, God, for having let us have my brother Eric for 6 years.”

The mother, who will never forget what her daughter said, told me there was not a dry eye at the table for a few minutes.  But gradually, as the meal progressed, they made an effort to discuss why the holiday was celebrated.  From there, the parents told of amusing experiences at Thanksgiving dinners in their younger years.  The mother said she planned to tell the stories to lighten the atmosphere just as carefully as she planned the menu.  By the time the meal was over, the parents discovered that what had been built up in their minds as unsurvivable had become just another turning point.

There will be many such turning points as you work your way forward.  You have already survived what you were certain you could not live through – the death of your child.  Turning points, plateaus, are merely steps in coping, and nothing more.  As you go through each holiday, each season, each happy-sad occasion, you will gain strength from having passed beyond yet another painful event.

 From The Bereaved Parent by Harriet Sarnoff Schiff