Ahhh a new year. A time for fresh starts, new beginnings and positive expectations.  But what if the new year is clouded by loss and sorrow?

I know of several folks who have experienced death and loss over this recent holiday season.  My heart hurts for them. Loss is never an easy thing, but it seems especially painful and disorienting during the holidays.  When everyone else seems to be happy and joy-filled, how to reconcile the feeling that you don’t feel the least bit merry and you actually feel angry that they are?  Or how about the confused guilt of possibly having moments of fun when you are full of grief?  Then there’s the uncomfortable position you may be in when someone who doesn’t know you’ve suffered a loss cheerfully asks “so how were your holidays?”

I’m not sitting here clicking along on my laptop with the goal of dispensing advice or therapy, because I’m certainly not a mental or emotional health professional. But I do understand bit of how it feels. My mom passed shortly before Christmas when I was just 29 years old.  We lost my amazing brother-in-law just after Christmas three years ago, and today is the 5^th anniversary of my oldest brother’s passing.  You’d think the holidays would be forever cloudy and ruined for our family, and that we would dread them every year.  But here’s the funny thing about the human spirit and the passing of time:  eventually all the good memories rise to the surface, pain eases a bit and we find a way to celebrate and enjoy life because that’s what those who have left would want us to do.  We don’t want them scolding us from above, do we?  

When we R.W’s learn of another loss, even if it is someone we don’t know personally, we tend to have a couple of strong reactions. First we have an almost irrational (or certainly unrealistic) desire to spend the next year traveling the world to see and hug every still-living loved one in our lives.  Second, we start to take stock of our own lives and the what-if’s kick in — especially if we are, ah-hem, on the mature side.  Have we done everything we want to do?  What if I die tomorrow? Will my family be ok without me?  What if I don’t get to travel the world?  What if I don’t finish (fill in the blank here) before I die?  What is my legacy I’ll be leaving behind?  Have I done enough in this life?  Will I be remembered? 

It’s perhaps macabre and definitely unrealistic to read obituaries and start comparing ourselves to the dearly departed.  Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t done this.  “Wow, this person went from nothing to running a Fortune 500 company in just 10 years.  They volunteered a bazillion hours helping the homeless and disabled children.  They climbed Mount Everest, barefoot while carrying a wounded goat.”   Soon we are writing our own obituaries in our minds and berating ourselves for not having done more.  We worry that our legacy is non-existent or at least not good enough.

Legacy. What does that really mean?  In a quick Google search, this definition came up: “the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life.”

Read that piece again:  the impact of… a person’s life.  Not necessarily the number of mountains they climbed, not their professional rewards and titles, not the number of books they’ve published (ok, that’s one of my triggers) but just the effect they’ve had on those left behind.

Of all of the people I’ve lost in my life, not once has anyone told me that they miss them for their accomplishments.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t all have goals and strive for excellence in whatever we want to be excellent in.  But who we are and how we act with others is the most important factor in building our legacies.  It doesn’t have to mean that we have launched a wildly successful foundation and raised ten million dollars for charity.  Yes, that would be amazing and fabulous. But most of us won’t do that.  

I have come to realize that quite literally the BEST gift anyone can give someone who has experienced loss and grief (and really, who hasn’t?)  is to share a memory or a story of the person who has passed.  I can’t even describe the joy it gives me when someone out of the blue will share a story with me about my mom, or my dad, or my brother…  even the most simple comment is a bolt of light.  It could be a recollection of a bad pun my brother shared; the appreciation that my mom always welcomed friends to supper and somehow magically had enough food to go around; some helpful handyman wisdom my dad bestowed; the realization that someone still makes one of my family recipes for their family years later; or even the marvelous wacky idiosyncrasies that can now get us dissolving into laughter.  Any one of those memories or anecdotes could be seen as trivial.  But they are not. They are huge.  They have impact.  Most of all, it reassures us that our loved one is remembered – not just by us, but by others who knew them, even if briefly.

We all have those moments when some memory of someone will pop into our heads. I urge you to reach out and share that memory.  You could make someone’s day a whole lot better, and ease just a bit of their pain or even just give them a smile and laugh and a warm fuzzy.  By looking back momentarily, you could be giving them a reason to look forward with hope.

And guess what?  You’ve just made a positive impact on someone else. Another checkmark in your own future legacy building.  Seems a whole lot easier than climbing a mountain.