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GRIEF AND DIVORCE
(Un) Happy Holidays
About the best thing I can tell you is you’ll get through it
Someone I love very much is struggling. She and her spouse are divorcing, and this will be the first holiday she will not spend with her young children.
This is a misery all too many of us have had to endure, and it sucks.
When I went through my divorce in 2002, Thanksgiving was my first childless holiday, too.
It’s a funny thing. Many of us focus on the first Christmas after a death or divorce and we think Thanksgiving is not going to be so bad.
And then we find out we were wrong.
It was a lot harder for me than I expected.
My family had a holiday tradition in those days. Before we started eating, we’d go around the table and say something we were thankful for.
When it was my turn, I was silent. The previous year, I’d had Thanksgiving with my husband and children, and could easily rattle off all kinds of things I was thankful for, having not one single clue what was about to happen to my family.
But in my fresh grief after the divorce, I mumbled, “I’m not thankful for anything this year,” and started crying. Then I drained…
