Peace family, with February as “The Month of Love,” loss can be especially hard.
If you’ve recently lost a loved one, Hospice Brazos Valley chaplain Gary Roe has some encouragement for you. When you’ve lost one of those close relationships, Valentine’s Day becomes one of those triggers for what we call, “grief bursts.” You kind of dread the holiday coming at you, and you wonder how you’re going to manage it. Maybe you aren’t even thinking about it, but all of a sudden, you find yourself sad and thinking about that loved one again. How in the world do you navigate this?
There aren’t any rules for navigating grief during Valentine’s Day, but the basic principle holds true for all holidays: make a simple plan. Know that the day might be emotional, and make a simple plan to honor that person somehow, remember them, and find ways to talk about them and share memories. Just having a simple plan for Valentine’s Day will go a long, long, long way. The important thing is not to avoid the grief, but to just own up to it and acknowledge, “You know, I really do feel sad, because I miss my loved one.” God created us for a relationship with himself, and secondarily with other people, so we typically don’t do separation very well. When we lose a loved one, our hearts kind of crack, and it’s painful, especially on Valentine’s Day, if you’ve lost a spouse, if you’ve lost someone very close to you.
If you’ve lost a child, that loss is unique in and of itself, all year long. There’s something unique about all losses, but the loss of a child feels backwards. Gary says they have a new resource to provide for that; it’s a book called, Shattered: Surviving the Loss of A Child. It just came out about a week ago.
Gary says he’s here to help. If you’re looking at Valentine’s Day and you’re wondering, “How do I navigate this?” call Hospice Brazos Valley a call at 979-821-2266 and let them know. He says they’d be glad to walk with you through this, and do anything that they can to help. Remember that the Lord is with you in this. He feels your grief. He is that close, and he will walk with you through it.
Click below to listen to Peace 107’s Brian and Kat chat with Gary Roe:
For a link directly to Gary’s new book, CLICK HERE.
To go to Gary Roe’s website, CLICK HERE.
You must be logged in to post a comment.