Birthdays, graduation, weddings, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve—these celebrations are sweeter when spent with family, whether the ones we were born into or the ones we choose. Nothing beats the comfort and contentment of being surrounded by loved ones in celebration of milestones in life. Yet, these moments may also be bittersweet reminders of missing faces and empty seats.
“It’s heartbreaking to spend a holiday without someone you love,” shares Dolores*. In 2023, her family celebrated Christmas Eve in the hospital where her brother was confined for heart complications. “We greeted each other [a merry Christmas] for the last time without even knowing it,” she says wistfully.
2024 marked Dolores’ first Christmas without her brother. Admittedly, she doubts that yuletide celebrations would ever feel the same for her family. The holidays are often symbolized as a period of joy and togetherness, but for some people like Dolores, it instead became a challenging time to navigate grief.
A silent night
When someone passes on, everything changes, as what was meant to be constant no longer is. This was the case for Juliana Alincastre, a psychology student from Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan, who lost her father seven years ago. Since his passing, every year felt a bit lonelier. Her mother had it the hardest. “She just lost the love of her life, of course it’s hard,” she mentions, gutted. In previous years, her mother would keep the spirit of the holidays alive and shining; now, the house grew much quieter.
“We didn’t really celebrate Christmas anymore,” Alincastre says. For the bereaved, it’s difficult to get into the joyous holiday spirit when such a meaningful part is missing: family. That first Christmas without Alincastre’s father was particularly painful. She spent it immersed in memories of him, weighed down by guilt amid the fanfare over unresolved resentment. “I didn’t get to tell him [that] I love [him] when he was still alive.”
She described past celebrations lasting until the break of dawn. These nights turned somber as her family headed off to bed well before midnight. “But suddenly, after he died, we just lost that tradition,” she shares. Even when they would try to reignite that spark once again, it never shined as bright as it once did. It is as if when her father died, a bit of the Yuletide went to rest with him.
Living in memory
Though the holidays may press at old wounds, time finds a way to reshape the ache left behind. Christmas might never feel the same for Dolores and Alincastre anymore, but the two of them have found a quiet acceptance in grief’s enduring nature. For them, the festive seasons have become a perennial reminder of the love that continues to linger past loss.
For Alincastre, the quiet yet jolly Christmas mornings spent with her late father have transformed into a familial pilgrimage. She fondly looks back on the way her relatives, once scattered due to their own bearings on grief, now come together to travel during the holiday season as she carries her father’s ashes with her to honor his memory. She recalls, “[During the holidays], we come together to cope. We have each other.”
Dolores’ journey with her holiday sorrows follows a similar trajectory—only in her case, the quietness of shared memories precede over grand cathartic gestures. The weight of her grief is still present, but it has been admittedly softened by the intimate moments spent with her family reminiscing over her brother. In listening to his voice notes and browsing through his pictures, there is a shared understanding of the pain and love that quietly deepens the night in Dolores’ home.
In these new ways of life, the shifting nature of grief becomes evident. But whether it be through mere recollection or in the search for solace from others who share the same wound, the heart of remembering remains the same: in the fervent hope that love does not vanish with absence but persists through remembrance.
Slowly, then all at once
“It all happened very fast, and if I could only rewind the time to spend more time with him, I would,” confesses Dolores. Try as one might, but there is no turning back the clock. We can peer into the past for memories of a more joyous time, but that grief will still remain—a weight that never seems to get lighter. But it is in blown candles, exchanged gifts, and the comfort provided by loved ones that this burden can be shared. After all, shared joy is double the joy while shared sorrow is half the sorrow.
Grief, as something ever present, stains and coats; it cannot be ignored nor should it be. Grief is how we remember someone after they pass, and how we remain connected to them long after they have gone. “Ultimately, grief is just love,” Alincastre concludes, explaining why it feels the strongest around the holidays. In times when we are meant to love the most, that is when we grieve the hardest. Because grief, much like love, comes slowly and then all at once.
*Names with asterisks are pseudonyms.
This article was published in The LaSallian‘s March 2025 issue. To read more, visit bit.ly/TLSMarch2025.
