The lights come on earlier. Familiar songs show up in stores and kitchens. Invitations arrive. People ask what you’re doing for the holidays, as if the answer is simple.
And then there are the moments no one else may notice: reaching for your phone to tell your person something, hearing a song you used to share, or realizing the holiday looks different because they died.
You may feel their absence in the middle of something ordinary. You may even laugh, enjoy a meal, or look forward to seeing someone—and then feel guilty for having a good moment. Or you may feel nothing like holiday cheer at all. There is no single way December is supposed to feel when you’re grieving.
Maybe a poem can make room for some of that. Not to explain grief or make it easier, but to sit with what this month can hold.
December Holds Both
The lights are up
on the house across the street.
Someone is singing along
to a song you know by heart.
The calendar fills.
The year keeps moving.
People ask what you’re doing
as if there is one easy answer.
You think of your person
in the middle of the day—
while wrapping a gift,
standing in line,
looking for something
you have bought a hundred times.
Their name comes to mind.
So does the sound of their laugh.
You almost tell them
what happened today.
Then you remember.
Some parts of December
are still familiar.
Some parts feel newly strange.
A place at the table,
a tradition,
a quiet ride home.
You can miss them
while you are with people.
You can feel alone
in a crowded room.
You can laugh at a story
and feel the ache return
before the laughter is gone.
You do not have to choose
one feeling and stay there.
You can go to the gathering
and leave early.
You can stay home
and mean it.
You can keep a tradition,
change it,
or let it rest this year.
You can say their name.
You can keep the story to yourself.
You can feel close to them
in a small, ordinary moment
that no one else sees.
December does not ask
whether you are ready.
The songs still play.
The lights still shine.
The year comes to its end.
And your person is still part
of the way you remember,
the way you love,
the way this month feels.
There is room for the ache.
There is room for a good moment.
There is room for both.
A poem cannot tell you what to do with your grief. It can’t make a holiday feel the way it used to, or make the people around you understand what this month brings up. Maybe it can offer a few words for a feeling that is hard to explain. Maybe it can remind you that you don’t have to make your grief smaller to fit into someone else’s celebration.
If you want to join in, you can. If you need to change your plans, you can, too. You don’t have to attend every gathering, keep every tradition, or pretend the day feels fine. You can remember your person in a way that feels right to you, even if it looks different from what you’ve done before.
December can hold the lights and the ache. It can hold laughter and tears, company and quiet, memories that bring comfort and memories that hurt. You don’t have to settle on one feeling before the month begins.
For now, you can meet the day as it is. That is enough.
The holidays can feel especially isolating after your person dies. On HealGrief’s® AMF App, you can share memories, speak honestly about the season, or simply connect with people who understand.
