The Holidays After Loss: Learning to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed

It’s been hard to step into the holiday season this year. Hard in a way you don’t fully understand until you’re standing in it—until the lights are up, the music is playing, and someone you love is missing.

Nobody prepares you for mourning during what’s supposed to be the happiest time of year.

The holidays are built on togetherness. Family. Laughter. Movies playing in the background. Food spread across tables. Games, inside jokes, familiar rituals. And then suddenly, there’s an empty space where someone should be.

My nephew should be here.

A young man just beginning his life—adventurous, living in Australia for a couple of years, ready to carve out his own path. And now… he’s gone. Almost a month has passed, yet the uncertainty surrounding his passing still lingers like a low hum beneath everything. It’s haunting. Unsettling. The kind of quiet that doesn’t feel peaceful—it feels unfinished.

You start asking questions that have no clean answers.

You start wondering how people survive this kind of loss.

The Truth About Coping (That No One Really Tells You)

People will tell you what helps: counselling, support systems, not bottling emotions, letting yourself cry. And they’re right. All of it matters.

But here’s the part you only learn by living it:

There is no checklist for grief.

You don’t solve it. You learn how to carry it.

My niece—an artist—has turned to painting and music. Watching her channel pain into creation is both heartbreaking and beautiful. It’s proof that healing doesn’t always look like “moving on.” Sometimes it looks like expressing what words can’t hold.

For me, it’s been writing. Little pieces of advice, thoughts, reflections—sometimes for others, sometimes just to get the weight out of my own head. Editing videos. Small projects. Anything that gives my hands and mind something to do while my heart catches its breath.

Recently, we celebrated my son’s birthday. We spent the day at an arcade—bright lights, random games, tickets piling up for prizes. Mini-golf. Laughter. Watching him have the best day.

It was a gift.

And also… complicated.

Because joy still shows up. And when it does, it can feel strange—almost disorienting. You laugh, then afterward something feels off. Not guilt exactly. Just the awareness that no matter how good a moment is, it circles back to the same truth: someone you love is still gone.

Letting Small Joy Be Enough

I’m not a musician, but I pick up my guitar sometimes. Playing forces me into the present moment. It quiets the existential questions—the ones with no clever or comforting answers.

And for a few minutes, that’s enough.

That’s something grief teaches you:You stop chasing happiness in big, dramatic ways. You start noticing the small moments that soften the edge. A song. A laugh. A distraction that lets your chest feel lighter, even briefly.

Those moments don’t erase the pain—but they coexist with it.

And that matters.

Redefining Strength After Loss

A friend who has experienced deep loss told me something that stuck:The pain doesn’t go away. You just learn how to live alongside it.

She talked about working out, calling a friend, crying instead of holding it in. She learned the hard way what happens when emotions stay bottled up.

What reassured me most wasn’t her advice—it was knowing I wasn’t alone.

People go through this.

They survive it.

They find ways to keep going.

And maybe that’s what strength looks like now.

Not pushing through.

Not pretending you’re fine.

But allowing yourself to be human.

Identity After Loss: Who Are You Now?

Loss changes you. Quietly. Permanently.

The version of you that existed before doesn’t fully return—and that’s unsettling. You may feel disconnected from your old goals, your old pace, your old definition of success.

That doesn’t mean you’re lost.

It means your identity is shifting.

Purpose doesn’t disappear after grief—but it often asks to be approached more gently. You don’t need grand ambitions right now. Sometimes purpose is simply showing up. Loving the people who are still here. Creating space for healing instead of forcing progress.

Listening to Yourself Again

Grief strips away the noise.

It forces you to listen—to your intuition, your body, your limits. It teaches you when to rest, when to reach out, when to sit quietly with what hurts instead of trying to outrun it.

Self-trust becomes quieter, but deeper.

Success stops being about achievement and starts being about honesty.Strength becomes softness.Healing becomes allowing both hope and sadness to exist at the same time.

Holding Space for Duality

You can be healing and still hurting.

You can feel grateful and devastated.

You can laugh and cry in the same day.

None of these cancel each other out.

And it’s okay—truly okay—to still not be okay… and still want more from life.

You don’t need to rush your grief.

You don’t need to “fix” yourself.

You don’t need to have answers.

The only way through this is your way.

Books can’t teach it. Advice can’t shortcut it. You learn by living it—step by step, breath by breath—hoping that one day the scar stings a little less than it did yesterday.

And if today all you did was get through the day, that is enough.

You are not weak.

You are not alone.

And even in the quiet, even in the hurt—hope is still here.