The first Christmas after my son died by suicide, I was in so much pain that I didn’t have the wherewithal to even put up a tree—let alone decorate the house. If it weren’t for my oldest son cutting down a straggly pine from our property, and setting it up, there wouldn’t have been a tree that year.
Then on Christmas Day, as everyone opened gifts, after I opened a thoughtful present from my husband—I cried uncontrollably--not because I was overcome with joy, but because I was overwhelmed with deep sorrow that had nothing to do with the gift.
Supposedly, according to the experts’ books and articles I was reading at the time, this ongoing anguish and perpetual state of survival after loss was now going to be my “new normal.”
It’s been seven Christmas seasons now, and looking back, that teaching poisoned my mind with hopelessness. Sure, the worst of the grieving process lasted for years, not months—which seemed like a suffocating eternity at the time--but each year my shattered heart healed a bit more than the year before.
Now, looking back, adjusting to the pain of loss is a temporary state; not a permanent condition.
God heals broken hearts and rescues those crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)
Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)
If this is your first Christmas of grieving a loved one, joy will come to your heart again. It won’t be like this forever.
Grief, although suffocating, is not a permanent condition. Joy will return as the heart heals.
In that season of deep sorrow, I was unable to attend a church service. The unresolved trauma and complicated bereavement created disconnection and more anguish. Instead, I attended The Compassionate Friends; a support group for grieving parents. I connected with them—they understood my pain without saying a word. There, I met another mother who’d also lost a son years prior to my son’s death. She was smiling, working again, and walked with a spring in her step. I asked her, “Will I ever feel well again?” She responded, “Oh yes! It won’t always be like it is today. Your heart will eventually heal.”
And that was all I needed to hear. Her words gave me the hope I so desperately needed. Those words got me through another Christmas season.
May they do the same for you.
Emily Boller, artist, speaker, and author of Starved to Obesity, (Post Hill Press; 2019) lost a son to suicide in 2012. Emily and her husband, Kurt, have been married for almost 40 years, and together they have raised five children in the heart of the Midwest.