Dealing with loss during the holidays
Remembrance services can offer comfort during a difficult time after the death of a loved one
The most wonderful time of the year comes every December — except for those who have lost a loved one during the year. For them, December and the Christmas season only make the emptiness and loneliness worse.
But, as I discovered last year after I lost my mother to cancer, there are holiday remembrance services that can offer comfort to those of us suddenly left to cope with the void that accompanies the first Christmas without a person who has meant a great deal.
I took part in the holiday remembrance service last December at the Andrews Community Funeral Centre in Brampton and gained great comfort from the event. I had no idea such services existed until the funeral centre invited me in. I’d begun to feel depressed about the approach of Christmas and quickly accepted the invitation. The staff and the other mourners were warm and welcoming.
Sharing tales about my mother eased my sense of loss and helped me cope with the first Christmas without her. I felt no guilt about depressing others at Christmas.
Instead, I was instilled with the powerful sense of relief that comes from knowing others feel the same way. Being able to share my grief freely and without feeling like a burden is an emotional and powerful way to ease the pain and to comfort others too.
This service also helped me understand that I am not alone in my loss.
Geoffrey Smith, the manager of the Andrews Community Funeral Centre, says the previous owners, George and Peggy Andrews, began the tradition in 1996 to help families cope with their feelings of sadness during the Christmas season.
These days, it has become a tradition for many funeral homes across the Greater Toronto Area to offer such remembrance services for their client families.
The Ridley Funeral Home, 3080 Lake Shore Blvd. W., Etobicoke, has held a Holiday & Hope service since December 2000.
“We started to hold our Holidays & Hope service after speaking at a church and getting feedback from our community that there was a need, ” says Brad Jones, president of Ridley.
For the first five years, the service was held at a nearby church. As the number of families attending the service grew, it moved to The Assembly Hall on Humber College’s Lakeshore Campus, not far from the funeral home. The mood is set with candles in the windows and poinsettias on the stage, beside a grand piano. The service is held on the first Wednesday in December. Family members who’ve had a loved one buried by Ridley’s get invitations to the Holiday & Hope service for three years after their loved one has passed away.
All of Ridley’s 19 staff members attend the service to ensure guests are welcomed by a familiar person. Attendees are given a gift bag that includes a Christmas ornament — a ceramic angel — bearing the name of the deceased. The service includes music, a talk by a grief councillor and a candle-lighting ceremony.
“Families tell me they feel a sense of belonging to a community of those who share their grief, and learn something new about coping with grief each year, ” Jones says. “They know that they are not alone,” and they leave feeling as good as they can under the circumstances, he adds.
At Andrews Community Funeral Centre, the service is open to any family whose funeral service was given by Andrews in the calendar year, “to celebrate and offer support to families who gather through a common purpose: to honour the person in their family who had passed, in a celebratory yet dignified way,” Smith says.
When I arrived for the service, I was warmly welcomed by the Funeral Director, Ilia Todorovski, who had helped me with my mother’s funeral arrangements. His greeting was very reassuring. Then I was given two ornaments, each with a photo of my mother in the centre of a silver snowflake. Near the end of the service, which included prayer, readings, music and a visual show of the lost loved ones, we each placed one ornament on the tree. The second was a personal memento to hang at home.
George and Peggy Andrews created this tradition to bring the families closer together to share and ease their grief.
After the ceremony, I joined many of the attendees for coffee and pastries in the funeral home’s reception room. I chatted with several other mourners at my table, and we shared our stories of loss and loneliness.
Most of the mourners had lost a parent, a spouse or an elderly loved one. But we were all moved by one young couple who had lost their 11-month-old daughter only a few months before; we gathered around their seats at our table as if hoping that together we could ease their sorrow.
When we reluctantly left, everyone seemed to be a bit more cheerful for having shared their experiences and having commiserated with each other. I felt better than I had in weeks.
“Every person who has ever attended this event has concurred that it has been beneficial and inspiring in helping to move forward in the grieving process,” Smith says.
The worst moments after losing a loved one are not the days immediately after the death or during the funeral, but when everyone returns to living their own lives and you are left to carry on as best you can. It is not always easy to do.
The service helped me cope in ways family and friends could not.
MEMORIAL from L1 “Every person who has ever attended ... has concurred that it has been beneficial and inspiring.” GEOFFREY SMITH ANDREWS COMMUNITY FUNERAL CENTRE