REGION — For some, the holidays are about sitting down at the table and realizing that one chair is now empty.

“The holidays are generally hard for a lot of folks,” said Anna Walsh, the hospice and hospital social worker for Wayne Memorial in Honesdale, PA. “There’s a lot of memory.”

What did everyone do together? Is it the same without that particular person?

The first year without someone can be the hardest, she said. “That person was here, and now they aren’t.”

Celebrating without someone—without a parent, a spouse, a child, another loved one—feels different and wrong.

There you are, suffering while others celebrate. It’s wrong, isn’t it?

It’s not wrong, Walsh said. “There’s no wrong in grief. It’s a rollercoaster that you get on. You didn’t want to get on it, but there you are.”

Society, she said, “tells us you should be this and that, but none of it applies” now. A grieving person can feel pretty much anything and everything.

And even future holidays are affected, Walsh said. “It’s walking back through the memories.”

The way we grieve has changed

The pandemic has made grieving harder, and not just because so many people have died.

“When someone passes away, our traditional support services” were disrupted, Walsh said.

There was a structure. A family member died, and the funeral was planned, obituary information collected and written, the family gathered. There was a service. Maybe there was a wake. People made sure you kept eating.

That “changed dramatically with COVID,” Walsh said.

Gatherings weren’t held. Even now, there are fewer get-togethers before or after the funeral. Services are private. Services will be held in the spring. In the future. Months from now. Never.

“A lot of things got put on hold that would have moved the process [of grieving] along,” she said.

Roles change after a death

Complicating grief is that you are not the same person anymore.

Maybe you were a caregiver and a partner, Walsh said. You shifted back and forth between the roles.

And now, suddenly, “both of those roles are gone.”

Who are you now?

You keep up the routines that were so familiar. You wake up at night, thinking you heard your name called.

“And then you realize—‘I don’t have to do this anymore,’” she said.

What to do if you’re grieving

Try not to plan ahead, Walsh said. “People go into organizational mode… but take a step back.”

Take care of yourself. What do you need? Those things might be different now. Exercising helps. Reconnecting with people makes a difference, she said.

Don’t bury the feelings. “Human beings were designed to feel,” she said. The pain “will come back if you hide it away.”

When it hurts, let it wash over you. “It’s like a wave,” Walsh said. If you sit and experience it, it can crest and move on.

Joining a support group can be extremely helpful, she said. “Support groups are a wonderful way to understand,” she said. “Cognitively we know we aren’t alone, but emotionally we feel alone.”

The group helps you remember and connect.

“You can open up and feel trust… in the facilitator and in each other. You’re surrounded by people in the same place.”

Walsh runs a group at Wayne Memorial Hospital at different times of the year, meeting for six weeks at a time. The groups are open to anyone. “If you only attend once, that’s OK,” she said. “If you’re not ready, that’s OK.” And “if you attend all six weeks, that’s fine too.”