Delayed Grief Over the Holidays

I have delayed Grief.

My mom died in October of 2021, and I promptly threw myself into tasks as a coping mechanism.

After she passed, there was so much to do, so I did what I always do: I got to work. There was a funeral service to plan, a cemetery plot and headstone to choose, and a hall to select for the repass.

Then there were relatives coming into town for the funeral, which meant there was a house to get ready, bedrooms to prepare, a pantry to stock, and guests to host. Then Christmas rolled around- the first one without her. I carried on with business as usual putting up lights, buying gifts, and cooking food, all to busy myself from the pain of that first Christmas without her; all to try to maintain a sense of normalcy for those around me, especially my children who had just lost their second grandmother in three years.

January came. A new year meant a new semester, and I threw myself into work, determined not to allow my loss to negatively affect the education of my students. I wore myself down with lesson planning and grading- dotting down my “I’s” and crossing my “T’s” so my 10th graders would pass their state exam and my AP students would earn college credit. I worked throughout the day and brought work home at night. I plodded through the semester trying my best to suppress my grief so as not to make my coworkers feel discomfort.

At the same time, I needed to settle my mother’s affairs and finalize her gravesite. Supply chain woes dragged out the process of getting a headstone, slab, and engraving for an entire year, which meant going back and forth to the cemetery via phone and in person. It kept me busy.

In the late Spring, my son graduated from high school and my close friend turned 40. I threw myself into going all out to plan both events while finishing out the school year. Anything to distract me from my grief.

Spring became summer, and school got out. I now had downtime to be alone with my thoughts. This prospect scared me, so I volunteered to help watch my friend’s kids while she worked, and thus busied myself with activities, field trips, and summer school runs.

Then school started back, and I wondered why I was too sick to return.

As summer waned, I researched and started a rather time-consuming podcast about mothers and daughters that kept me occupied throughout the fall as both producer and host.

October came around, and that meant it was time to mark the one-year anniversary of my mother’s passing. My house became a hive of activity in the first half of the month as I cleaned, prepped, and planned for relatives coming back into town for a memorial mass and family reunion. The latter two weeks of the month were spent hosting and entertaining said family. By the end of the month, I was exhausted, but I pressed on because November meant planning a tea party and traveling home to the UK for my sister’s 40th birthday.

December arrived, and life slowed down as I ran out of tasks to keep me busy. Suddenly, everything felt wrong and nothing felt right. Putting up Christmas decorations felt like a chore, and, for the first time ever, many of them never made it out of the storage box. The box actually sat in the living room for two weeks, and no outdoor lights went up, which is highly unusual. The Hallmark Christmas movies that once gave me so much joy just became background noise. The roles were reversed when this year, my husband had to drag me out to buy Christmas gifts. Friends tried to invite me to end-of-year celebrations, and I avoided them at all costs, gladly giving reasons why I couldn’t make it. I plodded through the month with an air of indifference, isolating myself and avoiding the festivities.

Last Christmas- the first without my mom- was hard, but this one seemed harder. I felt no joy, only sadness. That’s when I realized- the chickens had come home to roost: I had delayed grief.

“Delayed grief is described as when someone pushes off their grief reaction rather than dealing with it right away.” [choosingtherapy.com]

That’s the funny thing about grief- you can try to ignore it, but it will just be over in the corner doing push-ups (as a pastor once said) just waiting for you to be done with your busyness. Eventually, you’re going to have to deal with it. I realized that I never truly dealt with my mom almost dying on the plane as we brought her back to the US after her diagnosis. I never really dealt with watching her decline, and I never truly dealt with watching her pass away in my arms. I cried often in my solitary moments, but I never truly wailed for my loss. I just kept going, kept pressing on, kept being busy. And I paid for it with my physical and mental health. And then, after a year of busyness, we came to Christmas- the holiday we always did together, and suddenly I hit a wall and wasn’t able to push through the way I had done the previous year.

“Delayed grief often emerges when you have the time, stillness, and space to confront the loss and feelings you’ve been repressing.” [Psychcentral.com]

On Christmas Eve, I went to my mom’s gravesite alone and wailed for the first time. It felt cathartic and long overdue.

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For me, 2022 was one for the books. In the new year, I give myself permission to just be. To be still, To be at peace, To be at rest for the first time in a long time. I give myself permission to sit with my thoughts and not run away from them, To say “no” to things that are detrimental to my physical or mental health, To deal with those things I haven’t dealt with, To seek out grief support groups and therapy. I give myself permission to find joy and to explore and discover who I am in this new season of life without my mother. I look forward to gathering the broken pieces of me and allowing God to put them back together.