Traditions of Giving, Caring

Janet Richardson knows well the ghosts of Christmas past. Six years ago, her husband of 25 years died.

As with thousands of others who have lost loved ones through death or divorce, her pain and emptiness were magnified at Christmastime, especially when she hung her husband Gayland’s favorite ornament on the tree--a little Santa Claus with a cowboy hat and boots. Gayland was from Texas.

“When I pulled that out I was right back there again,” she said, her blue eyes glistening. “It kind of welled up in me.” She remembers standing before an 8-foot noble fir--its fragrance filing the room, its branches adorned with glowing white lights--and crying.

But on this morning, Richardson, a 54-year-old grandmother and hospital chaplain, is in a better place. She has lived through her Christmas requiem. She has walked through a darkness she thought would never end.

Tempered by her own grief and now trained as a bereavement counselor, Richardson and others like her are quietly offering the gift of a smile, an empathetic ear and gentle words of encouragement to those those who awaken this Christmas morning without someone they loved.

“You don’t have to be alone,” she said. “There still is life after death. You can still live. You can have joy.”

Richardson, senior chaplain at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, is among a growing number of clergy, counselors, health care professionals and members of churches and synagogues trained to reach out to those in grief.

In the last seven years, more than 1,000 Catholic parishioners in the Los Angeles Archdiocese have been trained in bereavement counseling. Similar training programs have cropped up around the country.

The Season Opens Scars

At a time when millions of Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus with worship, gifts and merriment, the death of someone dear can be especially poignant.

“These seasons are raw, open scars sometimes,” said Father Lian Kidney, pastor at Blessed Junipero Serra parish in Camarillo. “Sometimes you think it’s healed until you brush up against something.”

An empty place at the table, a familiar melody or the sight of a Christmas ornament can force emotions to the surface with unexpected force. Richardson recalls one woman who thought she was over her husband’s death until she walked into a store and saw a display of woolen socks like the ones he used to wear. “She stood there and just cried,” Richardson said.

Hospitals such as Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles report an increase in patients admitted for clinical depression in the immediate aftermath of the holiday season. At Glendale Adventist Medical Center, caseloads at Christmas for grief counselors routinely jump 20% in numbers and 50% in severity, said the Rev. Alice Zulli, director of the hospital’s Beyond Loss program.

Of course, the loss of a loved one is not the only reason for depression, stress or regret this time of year. Even the decrease in sunlight during the winter can lead to feelings of depression in those affected by “seasonal affective disorder,” said Peter Panzarino, chairman of the Psychiatry Department at Cedars-Sinai.

Separation because of divorce, family tensions or simply geographical distance can also intensify loneliness during the holidays. But for the vast majority of those seen by grief counselors, few things are as wrenching as the loss of a loved one.

Increasingly, however, growing numbers of the bereaved are talking about their feelings--and finding counselors and others who are willing to listen quietly.

“They might feel like a broken record,” said Sister Therese Galligan, who started a bereavement training program in Charlotte, N.C. “But that is how people heal.”

Facing Feelings Can Help

Psychologists agree. “One of the things that makes grief so painful is that we approach it and then we retreat from it,” said Robert DeRubeis, associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. “If we can discuss our thoughts and feelings about the departed with others that can be a good thing--even if it brings tears.”

Such was the scene this week as more than 90 women and men gathered at Glendale Adventist Medical Center for a festive holiday program sponsored by the hospital’s Beyond Loss ministry.

One by one, they walked forward and stood at a microphone, recounting the loss of a parent, a child, a husband, a wife.

Many wrote the name of their loved one on a helium-filled gold or silver balloon to be released into the heavens. Others wrote down their secret thoughts and sealed them in an envelope deposited in a “burden box” that was burned in a ceremony the next day.

Such rituals, counselors said, have a way of cauterizing the wounds.

Richardson, the hospital chaplain who lost her husband, said she is stronger today, in part because of her religious faith. But her own experience with grief helps her connect to others.

“There’s a bond there,” Richardson said. “Sometimes I say to a person, ‘I’ve sat in your chair. I don’t know how you feel. But I do know what it’s like to grieve and to hurt.’ It creates an instantaneous bond.”

It isn’t as if she’s forgotten Gayland or that melancholy is not sometimes a companion. But she believes that she has become a deeper, more empathetic person.

That is a healthy sign for anyone, said the Rev. Vern A. Woodlief, an Episcopal priest and chaplain for St. Joseph Health System Hospice in Orange. “Holidays and anniversaries do get better with time, but that may be because the memories become a comfort instead of painful,” Woodlief said. “The one who died is never forgotten, but is remembered differently.”

Reaching that point can be a struggle. It was for Richardson. First she had to confront her own fears, guilt, anger and loneliness.

She and Gayland were college sweethearts. They married just before entering graduate school. He went to seminary. She pursued a master’s degree in English. They had a wonderful daughter, Liesl.

There were no early signs of malignant brain tumors. “Asymptomatic,” the doctors would say later. Life went on.

It was, they thought, just a headache. He saw his doctor and got a prescription. The doctor thought an antibiotic should help. But the headaches didn’t go away.

“I told him I would go with him to the doctor,” she said. But the Wednesday he got an appointment she had to be in class. Her husband told her not to worry. He would go by himself.

When she got home later that day, his car was not in the driveway. “My stomach just turned over. I had an intuitive feeling something was very wrong. I should have been there,” she said.

“There was a message on the machine from our daughter. She said, ‘Dad’s in the hospital. Come. . . . ‘ When I walked into the room he just looked at me. He said, ‘I know I’m very sick and I probably won’t live.’ He was a very intuitive person.”

Then the doctors walked in and told him that a brain scan had detected three inoperable tumors. In less than three months he died in their Alhambra home.

It took years for her to learn how to mourn. For several Christmases, she said, the family walked around “kind of dead.”

The turning point came last Christmas, when she unpacked the cowboy Santa Claus ornament. It brought a flood of tears, but she knew she had a life.

“We’ve remade our family,” said Richardson, who dotes on her 21-month-old granddaughter.

“It’s nice to have the miracle of enjoying life again,” she said. “When grief is transformed, you’re aware of the cycles of life. There is life after death. You can have joy.”

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Where to Get Grief Counseling

Depression from the loss of a loved one or other reasons can deepen during the holidays. Here are phone numbers of clergy trained in grief counseling. In addition to these numbers, many churches and synagogues have support groups for the bereaved.

The Rev. Janet Richardson, senior chaplain, Glendale Adventist Medical Center. (818) 409-8008.

The Rev. Vern A. Woodlief, chaplain, St. Joseph Health System Hospice, Orange. (714) 712-7123.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, West Los Angeles. (800) 233-2771. A nurse will direct your call to the appropriate office.