Tis the ‘season to be jolly’ so it may seem a little unusual to want to bring up grief. In South Africa, Christmas collides with the end of the school year so in the midst of the festive fun, there are also many ‘goodbyes’. Sadness and grief are inevitable. My kids have had to face feelings of grief as they’ve parted with what they’ve known and grown to love. Fear of what the future holds and the nerves that come with starting a new chapter, new teachers, new classmates, are part of the Christmas season.
These are big emotions to navigate, even for us adults, and because they’re uncomfortable we tend to bury them under the very many seasonal distractions. We bury, we ignore, we dismiss…until feelings can be denied no longer because they’re bursting through our temples and seeping out of our pores. Feelings have got the better of our bodies and our behaviour. The heat is on and sadly it’s not just the juicy tenderloin on the neighbour’s braai.
The heat went up in our house gradually as we stumbled exhausted towards the academic ‘finish-line’. End of year picnics crumbled into sibling rivalry; music galas crescendoed into name-calling; honours awards got doused with irrationality while leavers’ assembly was met with mealtime fussiness. A perfect recipe for indigestion and we hadn’t even broken into the mince pies. Then just as the holidays struck, a little upturn on the burners for a proper emotional searing. Like the body expelling stress with a timely ‘start of the holiday’ virus, my middle son’ imploded.
The build-up of big emotions with no time or capacity to process led to irritability and impatience eventually culminating in proper ‘stuckness’ on day one of the summer break. Just as the rest of us were letting out a sigh of relief and enjoying the slower day, my middle child spent his day pulling on frayed nerves and acting angry and mean as he tried to pick a fight with anyone who happened to be near.
By about bedtime, and with some firmly delivered boundaries, the floodgates finally burst and the tears came. In between deep sobs, our son lamented the loss of his ‘favourite teacher EVER, a teacher who saw him, valued him and shared his sense of humour. He wept as he talked of the camaraderie he enjoyed with his classmates and confronted the reality that he may never have the same experience again. And as he cried, and spoke, and felt heard (kudos to my husband who was with him at the time); the acceptance and the relief came. So did the connection that had been broken several times earlier in the day.
‘Bad’ behaviour is usually a clue that something is up. Feelings are at play. Sometimes it may be as simple as tiredness or hunger or sensory overwhelm. Other times, it’s a big emotion that’s been buried and reburied in the chaos of the season and needs a clear boundary to push against as well as someone safe to process with.
As we close the year and say our goodbyes, there is an opportunity to help our children experience uncomfortable emotions like sadness, loss or grief. Knowing that these feelings are a part of life and that we also feel them helps them to be less overwhelmed by the discomfort, and better able to face hard things in the future.
Grief need not be feared and while it’s a process that includes denial, anger and quite a bit of bargaining, there is also the eventual release, acceptance and gratitude. In grieving what we’ve lost fully, we can more easily connect with others who’ve loved and lost. We can make way for the feeling of gratitude that comes with acknowledging and appreciating that we got to love so deeply at all.