Thanksgiving and Grief

I’m part of a support group that meets once a month. We talk about things that upset us in the last month in regards to our story (miscarriage, baby loss, still birth, infertility). We also talk about things we’re worried or anxious about in the upcoming month. At last week’s meeting, a lot of people shared about Thanksgiving being a huge stressor to them. Not because of the time it takes to cook. Not because of family coming over. Not because of societal expectations. Everyone had their own uniqueness to their story but it all revolved around feeling that their family didn’t understand that they were grieving. It’s a holiday where people are expected to be grateful and thankful. Did you hear it? Did you hear the space in that sentence for people to also be grieving? I didn’t. I read the sentence like this “It’s a holiday where people are expected to show the appearance of being grateful and thankful.” Thanksgiving is difficult to people in grief because it feels like we need to forget that we are also grieving.

Try to hear what I’m saying with this.

Thanksgiving can seem…out of balance.

Some families have traditions of going around the table and saying what they are thankful for. For the wife whose husband passed away, the mother whose child was just born stillborn, the sibling whose brother just committed suicide, the family who just lost their companion animal, the woman fighting infertility sitting across from a cousin who is pregnant…ONLY saying what we are thankful for feels like we are ignoring the part of us that is curled up in a ball screaming in pain. It feels like society is telling us that if we ignore the pain it will go away. If we focus on the thankful and grateful part, the pain will maybe ease a little. It won’t. You don’t get rid of pain by ignoring or overshadowing it with something else.

I’m not saying that Thanksgiving is bad or should be done away with. I’m also not saying that I want, or encourage others, to sit in a puddle of tears all day long. I’m saying that in my perfect vision of the world Thanksgiving would be a holiday where people felt comfortable being BOTH thankful and allowed to grieve.

What would that look like? We batted around some ideas in our support group. Maybe a place set for the people that aren’t with us anymore (babies, siblings, parents, etc). Maybe a moment of silence/prayer to remember those people. Maybe a sharing of a favorite memory of that person or pregnancy. Maybe a picture collection. I think it would look different for each person and situation. The idea though is to balance being grateful for what you have with making space for the grief of what is lost.