Grief is hard any time of year, but sometimes these minor holidays can feel particularly cruel. If you’re trying to cheer someone up this Valentine’s Day, this comic is for you. If you’d like to let folks know what *doesn’t* help (and what to do instead), this comic is for you, too. Illustrator Brittany Bilyeu and I teamed up to share some tips on how to make Valentine’s Day a little more gentle – for everyone.
Most people want to help, they just aren’t sure how. By sharing this post (and others from the RIG archives), we help everyone get better at delivering the love and support they intend.
How do you help a grieving friend on Valentine's Day? The cool news is you don’t have to be brilliant or omniscient (omniscient sentiment is kinda weird anyway). A card that says the obvious is awesome. Click To TweetTo get even better at giving support, spend some time looking around this site. There’s a lot of good stuff here for grieving people and those who want to support them. Check out this page for an orientation to all the awesome to be found.
Head over to illustrator Brittany Bilyeu’s awesome shop to see more of her work. And be sure to check out our Writing Your Grief course – it’s the best place to tell the truth about your grief. Come see.
How about you? What’s hard about Valentine’s Day in your world? What are some of the best cards and messages you’ve received? Let us know in the comments.
It’s all hard. It all sucks. This is my year of firsts. First holidays without him. First birthday. Christmas. New Years. Now valentines. I want to find a cave to hide in.
There are a lot of us in this tribe. From my heart–and my place further down the path–I’m sorry you’re in this club. The firsts are rough, for sure. It’s ok to be sad, or angry, or numb. It’s ok to feel however you feel.
We are here for you.
I’m also experiencing “firsts”. I feel lonely when I’m alone as well as in a crowd. Still can’t go through pictures…..almost feels like it makes his absence more real and I am avoiding that? Not sure. Ability to concentrate sucks, can’t read anything more than a page. Uggh
Such a mess of feelings. I moved over 4000 km from home — from everyone, everything, and every place that had been familiar for almost my whole life. The homesickness, after 18 months, will not abate. It’s a whole different flavour of grief. Since I’ve left, my spiritual mother, another close relative, and two beloved healer-doggies have died. I have a (still) intractable phobia of flying, so haven’t been home since I left. It seems that every resonant “grief-string” on the instrument of my heart has been twanged by rough, unrelenting fingers. I wake in tears every morning.
How many of us are grieving beyond the bounds of losses that are considered “normal” or acceptable, I wonder? How many forms of unacknowledged grief actually rip through us? Why are we expected to smile like idiots — especially when we are feeling at our worst? “Pull up yer socks!” –> “Pull up yer soul!”
Brittany’s illustrations are wonderful, as are your words, Megan. Thank you both — every acknowledgement of how awful it really is is a lifebuoy. I figure the best we can all do, in our own ways, is to acknowledge the depth and breadth of grief that actually exists; remind each other that it really is this painful, that we are legion. As I wrote in my journal not long ago (after someone, with the best of intentions — isn’t that always the way — told me to “let go” of the past), “We are admonished to let go of the past … but does the past let go of us?”
It’s all knit into our bones, into the fabric of our hearts.
I just wonder at this point, being nearly 60 and having lost nearly everyone who’s mattered most to me, if the grief ever softens. I’ve been grieving hard for about eight years now. Christ, I’m tired.
Valentine’s Day? Doesn’t even register, except as disgust every time I walk into a store and see the pink & red paraphernalia …
Those f**king firsts! My heart is with you, fellow first-whackers. –> “First-whackers” came from a conversation I was having with my best friend, whose husband died just over a year ago. She said that with every significant date/day/holiday/birthday, etc. that passed during the first year, she felt like she was being whacked upside the head with a 2-by-4. “I feel like a f**king bobble doll,” she said. Somehow out of our commiserating, came the term “first-whackers.”
My husband of 44.5 years died last year, 2018, ON Valentine’s Day. Really not looking forward to this one. However, our darling daughter, now pregnant with the grandson he will never know, (though he did get 2 years with our granddaughter)has suggested the following: let’s eat lunch at his favorite restaurant, listen to special music from his vast collection, walk the dogs, maybe watch a movie, look at photos, read some of his old columns….and when we each can’t take it anymore we will adjourn and have our private grief moments.
Glad I found your site and I keep your book nearby always.
My birthday is on Valentine’s day. This will be the first one without my mom and sister, who died within a couple months of each other last fall. In this age of social media my mom was the only person to actually call me on my birthday instead of texting, emailing, or posting on facebook. I’m going to really miss her call this year!