Starting this week, there is a rapid succession of difficult days ahead. That is…I anticipate they’ll be difficult.
This week my youngest son will start Kindergarten. It’s something his older sister dreamed of doing, but didn’t live long enough to do. Next week we will celebrate another of her birthdays without her. She would have been 10. Four weeks after that marks the anniversary of her death at the tender age of four. In the days that follow, I’ll be expected to celebrate my birthday, which fell on the day before her memorial service the year she died.
All of these days carry with them the anticipation of being a grief trigger. Anticipation can work one of two ways. It can imagine the best-case scenario, or it can imagine the worst.
So when we anticipate a difficult grief trigger, it brings up all the worst-case scenarios our imaginative minds can conjure up.
The first year after losing someone is the hardest. It was for me. It’s hard because your mind has no point of reference to compare to. The first holidays, birthdays, and anniversary of their death (angel-versary, devastation day…whatever you prefer to call it). They’re all anticipated as so painful, you can’t imagine how you’ll survive them.
So let’s get this straight: your anticipation of a grief trigger causes your mind to imagine a worst-case scenario. And since it doesn’t have a reference point to compare to, it compares it to the actual event that is causing the trigger. Your mind tells you the trigger will likely bring you right back to the pain you experienced on the day you lost your loved one. So you find yourself in an anticipatory panic even though you’ve already survived the worst pain imaginable.
In reality, our minds are our own worst enemies. So what do we do about it?
That first year, I felt like cancelling all holidays in an attempt to avoid the pain I knew they’d bring. We couldn’t because we had other young children who expected and deserved the celebrations. So we attempted to change tradition just enough to make them feel different.
For example, for that first Thanksgiving we accepted my brother’s dinner invitation, but requested a few simple things. First, we asked to keep the invite list as small as possible (his family and ours). Second, I requested to sit at the end of the table so that if I felt like I was about to burst into tears, I could easily excuse myself and quickly slip out of the room to be alone. Third, we requested to skip the “what are we thankful for” question tradition. Just thinking of that question that first year made my blood boil with anger.
For the first Christmas after her death, we opted for an artificial tree. It still looked like a normal Christmas for our young kids, but in my mind it was different. While we didn’t buy presents for Margareta to place under the tree, we did buy a wind chime to place in her stocking and then hung it at the cemetery later in the day. We kept to ourselves that year; just a small normal dinner at home. The day was filled with difficult emotions and we thought it best to keep to ourselves and focus all our attention and energy on our kids.
We had more options on Margareta’s birthday and the first anniversary of her death. I scheduled vacation days from work on both those days because I couldn’t imagine being able to function in any meaningful way. For months in advance, I agonized over what to actually do on those days.
I didn’t know what to do to make the horrible pain I imagined any easier. Every time I thought of it, I felt overwhelmed.
How do you “celebrate” a birthday of someone who isn’t there to celebrate it? You can’t ignore it. After all, you want to acknowledge the birthday of one of the most important people in your life. Do you buy presents and then donate them? Do you make a cake?
And then one sleepless night a few weeks before her birthday, it came to me. Margareta loved ladybugs. I would buy live ladybugs and we would release them at her grave on her birthday. So we did. Seeing the chaos of hundreds of ladybugs escaping the confines of the container they had been held in and exploring their new home injected some needed lightness and smiles into a heavy day that was full of sadness. Releasing ladybugs has become a yearly tradition on Margareta’s birthday. One that will continue for the rest of my life…and perhaps her brothers’ lives too.
As for the anniversary of her death – a vivid reminder of the worst day of my life – I planned to do nothing. And nothing was what pretty much what I did that day. It was an uneventful day. And, of course, wasn’t nearly as painful as I anticipated.
Since that first year, my anticipation of the pain that will be triggered on these difficult days has softened.
Each year I have a larger cache of reference points my mind can compare them to. And each year, the level of pain I anticipate lessens. That is not to say I don’t still feel pain and sadness on these days. But I know that pain pales in comparison to what I felt at her death and in that first year after. And I know that I have survived the worst pain I ever could have imagined. So pretty much anything else is manageable in comparison, right?
I will continue to make taking care of myself a priority on these trigger days that lay ahead of me.
With years of reference points to draw from, I’m better able to steer my mind away from imagining the worst-case scenario, and instead try to visualize the best-case scenario.
For example, I know I’ll feel sorrow on the first day of Kindergarten because my beautiful daughter never got to experience its excitement and joy. But in the meantime, I’m imagining those same feelings for my son, and anticipate being able to share in his happiness.
As for the upcoming anniversary of her death, I still plan to take that day off. These last few years we have consciously decided to do something that we think Margareta would have enjoyed. We do this in an attempt to shift the focus from the pain of her death to the joy she brought us while she was here. I also anticipate knowing that whatever feelings come my way that day, I’ll deal with them the best I can.
Regardless of how new your loss is…just keep reminding yourself that anticipation of a difficult day is always worse than the day itself.
This website was inspired by the memory of Margareta Sol Kubitz in hopes of helping others work through the pain of grief.
Maria, thank you for your words. The first anniversary of my son’s death is coming this October and I am dreading it. Your words help me to be less afraid of that day. Steve
You’re welcome, Steve. It might be helpful for you to make a short list of things you think you want to do that day (and it could be “nothing”) and also things you know you do NOT want to do that day. That way you can better prepare to avoid the things that are causing you the most anxiety or “dread”. If nothing else, be sure to give yourself some quiet time that day to just be with your thoughts of your son – preferably how much love he brought into your life rather than the circumstances of his death. Take care, Maria
This is so helpful, Maria, as you speak from your own hard-won experience. Thank you. I’ve shared it on Twitter and Facebook, and added it as a Related Article at the base of my own post, ‘Tips for Coping With Anniversary Reactions in Grief,’ here: http://j.mp/K58AGL ♥
As always, thank you Marty.
Today is my daughter, Willow’s birthday. August 24th. She died two months before her birthday so this is my second without her. I took the day off. I was afraid I would yell and burst into tears if anyone even said “how are you” just a greeting really, not a question but enough. Willow would have turned 43 this year. I not only lost my daughter, I lost my friend.
I love the thought of you releasing the lady bugs to celebrate Margareta’s birhday. It brought a smile to me on this lonely sad day.
Hugs♤
Rebecca, you and Willow are in my thoughts today (and many other days). I know how hard having birthday and anniversary dates so close together can be. I hope to see you at next month’s TCF meeting. Take care, Maria
I absolutely love the image of all those lady bugs being let loose. Thank you for that. And thank you for the really wonderful advice about anticipation. It is so true. The worst already happened. O what our minds can do with us.
Thank you for sharing. We just passed the first year. So many people have told us, “The second year is even worse.”
I can’t imagine anything worse! I appreciate your honesty and the hope you have given to me.
You’re welcome, Jill. The second year can indeed feel harder than the first in some ways (it did for me), but it is a much different type of hurt than the first year. Not nearly as raw and intense, and you WILL get through it. I’ll try to explain my understanding of the difference in a post in the near future, so stay tuned… Take care, Maria
Maria, thank you for the post which addresses an intensely difficult time for those of us who have lost a child. I have read that the anniversary of our tragedy is an invitation to be re-traumatized. Having recently dealt with that day for the second time, I find that to be true.
We kept our devastation day simple. We, my now earth family of four, wrote messages on balloons and released them at the beach where we were hiding out. I found the balloon release helpful. We later went to an outdoor restaurant for sandwiches and toasted Amy. 8 days later was Amy’s birthday and I did random acts of kindness throughout most of the day, but it did nothing to soothe my aching heart although I have found that others just want me to lie and say that it did. The lady bug release sounds lovely.
Thanks again for addressing this subject. It helps to be able to speak openly and frankly. Sugarcoating is exhausting. I imagine over time you just learn to live with the pain of unnatural loss. In my case I cope better for longer periods of time but two years later, my heart is shattered and I am still fumbling to process what my heart and mind battle to accept as a done deal.
Wishing you the glimmers of peace you offer through your words to all who read your blog.
Dee, I think how your family approached both of those days is inspiring. I know it still hurts like hell, but in my experience, focusing on small slivers of light nestled withing the darkness is what keeps us going. Take care, Maria
I admire everyone who manages to find a positive way to cope with and acknowledge the loss of a child on those traumatic days. Even after three years, I still do best just staying at home, not having to pretend around other people. But then I don’t have younger children. If I did, I would do my best, as you do, to honor and remember my child in a way they can appreciate.
Thank you, as always, for your very insightful blog posts which always give me hope for the future.
We do what works for us. I agree that if I hadn’t had young children around me at the time of her death, my grief trajectory would probably look very different than it does now. All we can really do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and see where it takes us. If we find we don’t like where we’re going, we always have the option to change directions. Take care, Maria