Tomorrow night I'm volunteering again for the Grief and the Holidays seminar. This seminar is sponsored by several Hospice organizations from the area, and is designed to help those who have lost loved ones with ways to cope through the holiday season. I suspect I'll get just as much out of it as our Hospice clients. I certainly took away a lot from the seminar last year.

I invited a friend of the family to attend the seminar because she lost someone earlier this year. She declined the invitation, but asked me to give her good ideas about how to get through the holidays. Since I am not a counselor, I do not feel qualified to give a laundry list of things to do and further, I don't believe that dealing with grief has a one-size-fits-all solution. The idea behind these types of seminars is to pull from several people's experiences and then decide what you want to take away to use in your own personal healing. All I could do was offer that she pull from all resources available to her and that I'd be quite willing to provide all of the materials I had at my disposal. It was up to her to decide what would be best for her.

The holidays are surely a difficult time for those that have lost people they love, so doing anything and everything to enable self-care is very important. I've talked to hundreds of people that have lost family (spouses, children, siblings, parents, etc.) and one of the first things I ask them is "what are you doing to help you deal with your grief?"

Those who say they've attended or are attending grief support groups (whether through Hospice or church, or other means), individual grief counseling, or similar endeavors inevitably do better by leaps and bounds than the folks who aren't actively participating in self-care. Everyone handles grief differently, of course, but the common denominator of handling it well seems to be taking advantage of available services.

The wonderful thing about Hospice is that grief and bereavement support groups and help, including one-on-one calls, is available at no charge.

I've learned quite a bit from the experiences of the people I've talked to who are living with grief. I realize that I may at times sound evangelistic about Hospice. It's only because I believe wholeheartedly in its value. When my time comes (whether it's as a patient or someone grieving the loss of someone I love), I'll be first to stand in line to receive help. In the meantime, I'll be there to help those that go down that path before I do.