Holidays are perhaps the toughest times for those who have suffered the death of a beloved spouse or partner.

A succession of holidays coming back-to-back–Thanksgiving, the Christmas season, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day—only serve to heighten the sense of loss. With a loved one absent on those occasions, we need to know we are not alone. Help can range from counseling one-on-one, to joining a group of people with similar losses, to proactively using coping strategies recommended by experts.

Eileen “Ellie” Meindl O’Hagan, a Chicago artist, in 2009 experienced her first holidays without her husband of 25 years due to his recent death. She said she managed with the help of a therapist and by forcing herself “to smile during family dinners,” and will manage future holidays with the aid of her counselor as well.

Understanding that you are going through what almost everyone who suffers a similar loss goes through is a start.

“I think losing a spouse must be one of the hardest things in life,” right up there with “losing a child also,” said Rhonda Borman, a psychotherapist, social worker, and grief expert based in Nashville, TN.

Evolution of Emotions

“For someone who is newly widowed, the emotions can run the gamut,” Borman said. First, there’s numbness. Then anger. Then learning to cope without your beloved. The worst is a feeling of desperation.

“I had a great husband,” O’Hagan said. “We were friends and lovers and companions. We had plans.” Some times, she climbs into her car and drives around in tears.

After losing her husband to a heart attack in July, the 60-year-old widow had to sell his business, look for a less-expensive apartment, and make plans to move out of an art studio. She is living with her daughter until tenants vacate the upstairs of her daughter’s two-flat.

“Everything I had is gone or going,” O’Hagan said. “I am beginning all over.”

O’Hagan is looking forward to the New Year, when she expects to settle in her new home and resume painting abstract art. She expects the pain of losing her husband to ease in a year or two. “There is no rush,” she said. “I am going to lick my wounds for a while.”

The grieving process takes time, said Suzy Yehl Marta, founder and president of a not-for-profit grief-coping advising organization called Rainbows, based in Rolling Meadows, IL. Marta is an expert in grief resulting from death or divorce.

“First and foremost, people need to allow themselves time to grieve,” Marta said. “It does not stop with sobbing at the cemetery. It takes a number of years.”

In the first year, grieving people should tune into their feelings and take care of themselves, Marta said. The second year also is very painful. A lot of the support system eases away, often causing grieving people to feel isolated.

Avoid Isolation

How you deal with your loss depends on your personality, Borman said. “Some people prefer to grieve alone, but it is important to not isolate yourself; stay connected,” she noted. Borman suggested that the grieving person make time for others and be somewhat more “assertive” in scheduling time with family and friends.

O’Hagan had seven brothers and sisters; her husband was the eldest of eight. She sees a lot of her siblings, in-laws, her own two children, and numerous nieces and nephews.

“Find a good therapist,” Borman said, and “a support group that is run by a reputable agency. Grief-support groups exist in many cities, even for the families of victims of violent crime, Borman said. Check around if you believe you need a group.

Also, “one of the best things to do is to get some books on grief and loss,” Marta said.

Both Borman and Marta recommend volunteer work as a way to heal. “Reach out of yourself and help someone else,” Marta said.

This time of the year is almost perfect. At the holidays, many of the “helping organizations” are short on staff, Borman noted. She suggested simple things such as offering to drive for Meals on Wheels or helping children in hospitals.

Coping Exercises

Borman offered several self-help strategies:

●Be sure you get enough sleep. Count down from 100 by seven. If still are not asleep, just start over. If the countdown does not work after trying a few times in a 30- minute span, try chamomile tea or reading. Or, try sleeping in a different room or on a sofa until you accept our loss.

●Allow “worry time.” Six to eight times a day, lie down and imagine standing outside a bank vault, opening the vault, and opening a box containing all your worries. Let the worries float out and permeate you. After nine minutes, put the worries back into the box. Tell yourself, “I can’t worry until the next period.”

●Combat low energy and difficulty motivating yourself. Make up a schedule with quarter-hour increments. Fill in every 15-minute period and follow the schedule. Find something to fill up the schedule, even if it’s only watching a particular TV show.

Try New Traditions

Holidays are especially hard because of your traditions as a couple, Marta said. Consider what traditions you want to change. Involve your children in discussions about changes. “Be honest with the kids,” Marta said. “Tell them what you need. There’s something very healing in talking about it.”

O’Hagen will visit her son and his wife in London after Christmas. “When I come back, it will be a new year and I will have put the holidays behind me,” she said. “I would love to be in suspended animation and wake up in the spring.”

“The whole grief process involves making time for yourself,” Marta said. “Ask yourself, ‘Who am I today?’ You are a different person now than before marriage.”

O’Hagan is working on that. She quit painting after her husband’s death. “There is so much going on now that I don’t have the focus, but I’m not worried about that,” she said. O’Hagen plans to resume painting next year in the spare bedroom of her new apartment, and expects her experience to show in the new abstracts. “I know when it breaks through it is going to be big in my art,” she said.

“I am so lucky I can sit here and let the grief have its way,” O’Hagan said. She still sees her counselor. “She really helped me a lot. I still see her to make sure I am not going off the deep end. I am not.”

“It is a journey,” Marta said, noting the journey has “a lot of phases of ups and downs. “Move forward through depression to recognize life does go on.”

Acknowledge that what you are going through can actually be a sort of “positive process,” concluded Borman. “Grief is nature’s way of reminding us that our time with that person was real.”

–Susan S. Stevens

 Resources:

• Rhonda Borman, www.rhondaborman.com
• Susy Yehl Marta, www.rainbows.org