{"id":682,"date":"2014-11-24T08:32:52","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T13:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=682"},"modified":"2020-02-11T07:16:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T12:16:53","slug":"682","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/682\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Tips for Grievers"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>If my daughter were to show up at my door on Thanksgiving Day I\u2019d hug her howling, laughing, dancing, throwing myself at her. It would look like the videos<\/a> on Facebook of veterans returning home being greeted by their old loving dogs.
\nThen, after the emotional reunion, I\u2019d merrily mess around in the kitchen all day fixing her favorite foods and stuffing the fridge to last a whole week. I\u2019d make her 3 different cranberry relishes and the recipe of pumpkin ice cream pie<\/a> I found online last week. She would tear the breadcrumbs for the stuffing and make a carrot cake. If she were here the house would have flowers and candles. We were foodies together. And this was our holiday.<\/p>\n

Damn it. If I have to cry my way through it, I AM gonna make a pie on Thanksgiving this year. Wegmans<\/a> can make the turkey and Roses Home Dish<\/a> can make the sides, but I will make cranberry sauces and pie. There will be leftover-turkey enchiladas and wines for my son who will be asleep upstairs while I work wailing in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

This will be the 4th Thanksgiving without Marika. I think I\u2019m learning how to handle this.<\/p>\n

Convinced that one can grieve and be grateful at the same time, I\u2019m calling it Thanksgrieving.<\/p>\n

So here are my tips:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Treat yourself like you\u2019re the guest. Be good to yourself because a part of the one you love now lives on inside of you. Our beloveds won\u2019t be seated at the table but they are seated in our hearts. So carry on the way (s)he would have wanted.<\/li>\n
  2. Allow yourself to cry. Let the pain run out in tears. Pull out old photos, phone your sister in Florida to reminisce, chop onions, and cry like a lemon being juiced.<\/li>\n
  3. If you can\u2019t find something to be thankful for, go do something nice for another. In 3\u00bd years of mourning my daughter, I found the most joy always comes from giving someone else something to be grateful about.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So go do this holiday, my friends. You are not alone.<\/p>\n

    What do you love and remember on Thanksgiving? And who is in your heart?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If my daughter were to show up at my door on Thanksgiving Day I’d hug her howling, laughing, dancing, throwing myself at her. It would look like the videos on Facebook of veterans returning home being greeted by their old loving dogs. Then, after the emotional reunion, I’d merrily mess around in the kitchen all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[326,327,330,329,328],"class_list":["post-682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-coping-with-the-holidays","tag-dealing-with-loss-on-thanksgiving","tag-grief-and-gratitude","tag-holiday-tips-for-grievers","tag-surviving-thanksgiving"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}