The First Winter Without Them

The first winter after a death asks a lot of you at once. The clocks go back, the evenings close in by four, and the calendar fills with days that used to have them in them: birthdays, the anniversary, the first Christmas or Diwali or Hanukkah or New Year without them. None of this means you are going backwards. It is a hard season arriving on top of a hard year.

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Why dates hit so hard

Grief researchers have written about the “anniversary reaction” since at least the 1970s: a return of grief, sometimes in the body as much as the mind, around the dates that matter (Bornstein and Clayton, 1972).

Many people find the run-up is worse than the day itself. The dread builds for weeks, and then the day comes and is survivable. Knowing that can take some of the weight out of the waiting.

The dates are hard partly because your brain still expects them to be there. Every tradition you shared is a cue, and each one sets off the old expectation before the truth catches up. That is not you failing to accept the loss. It is what a brain that loved someone does.

Dark evenings and routines

Grief already disturbs sleep. Studies of people who lost a partner find sleep that is lighter and shorter than it should be, months after the death (Monk and colleagues, 2008). Winter adds long, dark evenings, and for some people the low mood that comes with less daylight.

Two things have good evidence behind them:

• Daylight, early. Light in the morning helps set the body clock that grief and short days both disturb. If winter brings a low mood you recognise from other years, seasonal depression, bright light treatment has strong trial evidence and is worth asking your GP about (Golden and colleagues, 2005).
• A steady shape to the day. In a small trial with widowed older adults, a therapy that worked only on sleep and the regularity of daily routines helped mood as well as day-to-day functioning (Pfoff and colleagues, 2014). Same wake time, a reason to go outside, one fixed point in the evening. Not a perfect routine. An anchor.

What tends to help with the days themselves

• Decide in advance, and keep a way out. Choose how you want to spend the day, who with, and how you will leave if it gets too much. Plans you can change are easier to keep than plans you have to defend.
• Let yourself take it in doses. Researchers who follow bereaved people find that grieving well means moving between facing the loss and stepping back into ordinary life, not staying in one or the other (Stroebe and Schut, 1999). An hour remembering and an afternoon watching a film are both part of it.
• Keep them in the day, on purpose. A candle, their recipe, their record on, a toast, an empty chair if that feels right. Research on continuing bonds found that staying connected to the person who died, in ways like these, is a normal part of grief for many people (Klass, Silverman and Nickman, 1996).
• Change a tradition, or keep it exactly. Both are allowed. Some people need the old day kept whole. Some cannot face it and do something new. Neither is a verdict on how much you loved them.
• Say their name. Out loud, to someone who knew them. The silence around a name tends to get heavier in December, when everyone else is being careful.

If you are supporting someone

Mark the date in your own diary and send a message on the day, not just before Christmas: “Thinking of you and of him today. No need to reply.” Say the person’s name. Offer something specific, like a walk on the 27th or a seat at your table, instead of “let me know if you need anything”. And remember that the weeks after the holidays, when everyone else has moved on, can be the loneliest of all.

There is more on the sentences that help in What to Say, and What Not To.

If it becomes too much

Sources

1. Bornstein, P. E., and Clayton, P. J. (1972). The anniversary reaction. Diseases of the Nervous System, 33(7), 470 to 472. PubMed 4648448.
2. Monk, T. H., and colleagues (2008). Sleep and circadian rhythms in spousally bereaved seniors. Chronobiology International, 25(1), 83 to 98. doi:10.1080/07420520801909320.
3. Golden, R. N., and colleagues (2005). The efficacy of light therapy in the treatment of mood disorders: a review and meta-analysis of the evidence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162(4), 656 to 662. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.162.4.656.
4. Pfoff, M. K., Zarotney, J. R., and Monk, T. H. (2014). Can a function-based therapy for spousally bereaved seniors accrue benefits in both functional and emotional domains? Death Studies, 38(6 to 10), 381 to 386. doi:10.1080/07481187.2013.766658.
5. Stroebe, M. S., and Schut, H. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement. Death Studies, 23(3), 197 to 224. PubMed 10848151.
6. Klass, D., Silverman, P. R., and Nickman, S. L. (Eds.) (1996). Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Taylor and Francis.