How do you deal with the anniversary of a loved ones death?

Think about happy memories of the person and if it makes you feel better, visit the grave. If it was a family member, talk to other family members that day too. What time are you asking about?

@perspicacious the anniversary. The week prior and day of their passing, say.

It used to, but now it’s more wistful than out-and out sad. I think getting older myself has something to do with it. Today is the day Mommy died 10 years ago. For the first few years after she died, this was a moody few days for me. Also, she was the first person I’d known in my adulthood who gotten sick and died. Since then, a number of friends and family have gone. It’s not like I got used to it, but I’m aware that it’s going to start happening more often.

Please accept my condolences on your loss. The first year is always the hardest, I think.

@jjmah No, my mood doesn’t change for days or a week. I actually seem to remember people more on their birthday than on their death anniversaries. I lost someone last year, the closest to me to die, and I imagine I will remember her on many days of the year for a long long time, maybe forever.

Hugs! Yes my mood changes and that is a very normal grief response so no need to fight it.
We always have a social get together during our time of loss. And then personally we do something to honor our loved ones memory. I’ve done a wide variety of things from releasing a balloon, to writing, to making something and releasing it on the water. We also have a mini alter in our house that I can put food and water on and other “gifts”. I find that a physical gesture of some sort is very healing.

@jjmah

I’m sorry for your loss, and hope you can find some relief from the memories at this hard time.

The way I seem to handle it is to forget that it came and went. I guess people would say that’s not very healthy, wouldn’t they?

@Everyone, thank-you.

@aprilsimnel (((hugs)))

@RedPowerLady I love the idea of making something and releasing it on the water. Each year, our family releases 12 yellow balloons (yellow was my Mom’s favorite color and there are 11 of us in our family – number 12 is my Mom). My niece thinks that Grandma is up there catching the balloons in the“balloon forest”.

@perspicacious for me, the anniversary of her death is more difficult than her birthday (which is also tough). I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that she suffered a lot at the end (passed away from Ovarian Cancer). We (our family) were all there with her everyday until she passed. We saw it all.

@jjmah Yellow is the color we use too :)

Birthdays, Anniversarys and anniversarys of deaths I always watch old home movies, and I might go to the cemetary, and put flowers on the grave (because it was important to them that I do it, not to me).

You deal with it by not allowing past pain to effect your present moment.

There is no reason to relive past pain over & over again.

You may have a fleeting moment of acknowledgement but if the anniversary date becomes some sort of anticipated event for more greif and pain, that’s a signal that you are clinging to the past and that is detrimental to your well being in the present.

Dead is dead…fond memories are one thing, being a slave to ghosts of the past is entirely another.

My grandmother died on my grandfather’s birthday about 4 years ago. We celebrate her life, visit her grave, and celebrate my grandfather’s living with a big fucking cake, because frankly when that day comes around he deserves one.

Big hugs @jjmah
For me, it has only been a year and a half, but I write a note to my mother on her birthday, and on holidays that the family use to get together. I then burn them because that was the way she told me that my grandmother got messages, and I really want my mother to know how I am, and how my life is going. But my best friends says that she is always with me no matter what.
But I have noticed when these times come up, my mood changes dramatically, and I want nothing more than to be left alone.

May 25th is the anniversary of my best friend’s suicide, too.

I don’t handle that day very well.
I replay every memory of us in my head over and over.
I have mental images of him after he….yeah.
I break down. Hard.
This will be year 3 without him, and it hasn’t gotten easier.
We the maybe… 5 other good friends he had get together and have a LAN party in his honor. He was Halo obsessed.
Hopefully this year gets a bit easier. I still think every day that maybe he faked it, and he’ll show up one day.

@jjmah <hug>

Things get worse. May 6th was six months without my Meg. I spent the day at her grave; drinking and feeling sorry for myself. The world is a bleak and empty place without her. When you live your life for another person, things seem pointless after she’s gone. I tend her black tulips and try in my own clumsy way to continue the good work she did. The antidepressants keep me going, but life holds no enjoyment. Just setting and meeting goals, waiting for the end.

For the past 5 years then my mom and I get a little weird around the anniversary of my grampa’s death. We’ll go ahead and talk about him, make some of his favorite foods and just let ourselves remember him even if it’s with some tears or anxiety. I’m not sure the feeling of loss will ever leave us or if it’s supposed to so we’ve talked about just accepting it as part of loving him and being impacted by him so deeply. Go easy on yourself and let what comes to you come, think it over, cherish your memories and cry if you want.

At the risk of debating on a sensitive thread I will just say this and take other comments to the PMs.

@Coloma
that’s a signal that you are clinging to the past and that is detrimental to your well being in the present. Dead is dead…fond memories are one thing, being a slave to ghosts of the past is entirely another.

Sorry but grief does not work that way and grief is very healthy.

“Waiting for the end”, @stranger_in_a_strange_land, I know what you mean. I do.

I just passed the second Anniversary. This year I’m capable of understanding that my Rick cannot come back, no matter how clean I keep the house.
I do a lot of things like @RedPowerLady talks about – not just on anniversaries. Letting things sail away. Conversations with his lovely spirit and with people who loved him. Things are lightening. It’s slow.

@RedPowerLady

Of course, greif has it’s cycles, I am not speaking of the normal amount of time it can take for someone to navigate a great loss.

Several years is not an unreasonable amount of time to process and adjust to the loss of a loved one, but…if days and weeks are spent in anticipation of grief surrounding an anniversary death date it becomes unhealthy and morbidly obsessive.

The natural course of grief ends with acceptance, and like I mentioned, an acknowledgment and a few moments of remembering is not the same thing as one who is stuck for years and years.

Clinging to the past is the number one reason for much of peoples suffering, that’s just a fact.

I maintain that if one is still stuck after several years that professional help is a good idea.

@Coloma I’m sorry and disagree that is how grief works. If you want to discuss it further please PM me or start a new discussion and link me to it. I don’t want to overtake this thread with a debate b/c I feel it is inappropriate.

Sometime in Mid-October I start to act crazy. Then on October 24 (her birthday) I cook my mothers favorite dish (Lasagna) and invite people over to eat. I have done this for the past 3 years. I now feel that this was a way to appease the guilt I felt for not being with her when she died and so I have decided not to continue this tradition. I don’t have anything to feel guilty about. If she wanted me with her she would have treated me better. She made her choices.

Yes, it has happened to me.
But I remember the life lessons that my mother had shown us by her giving example, and that reminds me of her reason/purpose in her life.
I try not to dissapoint her memory and try to emulate her giving nature.
Her memories are good memories, that then take over my thoughts.
I am in the process of trying to write a book about her life etc