Op-Ed: Grieving Through the Season of Joy

Grief doesn’t take time off for the holidays. In fact, it often shows up more loudly, more sharply, in contrast to the forced cheer around us.

Traditions that once brought joy now sting with memory. Hanging an ornament on the tree that your spouse once picked out becomes a small act of mourning. Watching your parent — who once carved the turkey with ease — now struggle to hold a fork can leave you aching for the past, even as you sit in the present.

There’s a particular cruelty in how the holidays wrap grief in tinsel. The world keeps spinning — Mariah Carey blares in every store, neighbors hang lights, invitations to “cheerful” gatherings pile up — but for many, these months bring more dread than delight.

The grief of chronic illness is especially complex. With diseases like Alzheimer’s, MS, and Parkinson’s, the loss is slow, layered, and hard to explain. You don’t get casseroles and condolence cards for losing someone piece by piece. There is no funeral for the moment your father forgets your name, or your partner can no longer walk to the mailbox. Instead, there’s a quiet, ongoing mourning that rarely gets acknowledged.

This kind of “living loss” is its own kind of heartbreak — one that can be especially isolating during a season that prizes connection.

In addition to grieving friends and family, caregivers carry an invisible weight — one that often grows heavier during the holidays. The season can mean more work, more emotional labor, and more pain, all while trying to preserve some sense of normalcy for others. Many caregivers don’t feel they have permission to grieve while their loved one is still alive. But anticipatory grief is real. It deserves compassion. And it is more than appropriate to mourn the loss of how things once were.

And yet, those who suffer in silence often feel pressure to “stay strong,” to “focus on the good,” or to put on a happy face for the sake of others. But grief isn’t a problem to be fixed. It’s a testament to love — love that still exists even when the person we knew has changed or gone.

Some will say, “Wouldn’t your loved one want you to be happy during the holidays?”

Yes — and we do our best. But honoring them doesn’t mean suppressing our sorrow. Sometimes, it means setting a place at the table just to say: You were here. You mattered. You still do.

There’s no blueprint for grieving during the holidays. But maybe the most honest gift we can give ourselves — and others — is permission to feel whatever arises. Maybe we light a candle in their name. Maybe we skip the party and take a quiet walk instead. Maybe we cry through carols, or laugh at memories, or do both at once.

We need more space — culturally and personally — to let the holidays hold complexity. Joy and grief can coexist. So can celebration and silence. A holiday doesn’t have to be picture-perfect to be meaningful. It just has to be real.

If you’re navigating grief this season, know this: You are not alone. Your sadness doesn’t make you broken. It makes you human. And in a world that often rushes to cover pain with glitter and greeting cards, your truth is its own kind of light.

Let’s make room for it.

Giving yourself permission to feel both joy and grief — sometimes even in the same breath — can help release the emotional pressure that otherwise builds to an overwhelming peak during the holidays. By allowing space for your whole experience, you honor not just your pain, but your resilience too.