TL;DR:
- November 1st marks a special day for various groups to honor their loved ones who have passed away.
- Suzanne shares her personal experience with grief and how she’s found ways to honor and remember her loved ones.
- The key message is to bring the qualities you loved about the people you’ve lost back into the world through your actions and words.
Lost and Found: Honor and Remember Your Loved Ones
On November 1st, it’s a special day for some groups. In Mexico, it’s the Day of the Dead. In some churches, it’s All Saints Day. Regardless of place or group, they’re all doing the same thing: honoring those loved and lost.
Over the past few years, I’ve lost some really important people I love so much. My beloved Mom and my dear friends Bev, Mindy, and Corinne. I know anyone reading this has loved and lost some really special people too.
It can be such an enormity of loss. It marks a time of before and after; you are changed. But, just like failure, disappointment, or heartbreak, grief is a part of a complete life. It is proof to the world that we have loved and loved well. Grief is complicated and a deeply personal journey. Through ongoing reading and therapy, I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about grief in an effort to help my broken heart find its way together again. These great losses are the 10%-20% of our lives that we can’t control. But as rational optimists, we are encouraged knowing that leaves 80%-90% that we can influence or impact.
In this grief journey, I learned something that has helped me reframe grief in a way that gives us a bit of a say in this process. Amidst my sadness and heartbreak, it has left me with a bit of peace, hope, and happiness. “Be the things you loved most about the people who are gone.”
Bring Them Into the Room
Grief is a really tricky thing because it’s easy to be caught up in all of the loss. Isn’t it interesting when someone dies we say we “lost” our people? “We lost him last year; we lost her to cancer.”
Here’s what. We can bring our loved ones into the room at any time. We are never more than one action away to honor them. Conjure them up and do something they would do. Carry on their legacy.
We can bring our loved ones into the room at any time. We are never more than one action away to honor them. Conjure them up and do something they would do. Carry on their legacy. Click To TweetHonoring My Friends and Family
To honor my dear friend Bev who passed away 11 years ago, I show her beautiful picture around the country when I speak to groups. I share how she knew she had limited time, and declared she would “squeeze the heck” out of that time. Her hand painted quote on her bedroom wall is always the final visual of my presentations: “We have so little time. We must spend our days as happily as possible.” Although Bev is no longer a librarian at Mill Creek Elementary, she is going to keep teaching and inspiring on my watch.
And Corinne? Her nameplate is the first thing someone notices when they walk into my office. It’s right in the middle of my bookshelf among the books she loved and shared with me. It serves as an active reminder to those who miss her to do what she always asked of us: Do we have shining eyes for our colleagues and our students?
To honor the legacy of my beloved mom, my person, I do what I can to nurture mom’s favorite people—kids. I get to do this every day at work and share her words of encouragement and love with people who never met her. They may not have known her, but they can certainly be inspired by her. Just the other day I baked her famous chocolate chip cookies for an after-school meeting. I put her name on a sign and made sure those who never met her got to know Beverly Olney through her delicious cookies. I’m going to keep bringing her into the room.
How can you honor those you’ve loved and have passed away? How can you be the things you loved most about that person?
Author Elizabeth Gilbert lost her dear friend Reya years ago and actually celebrates the depth of her grief. “The honor in grief is that it is rejoicing of having loved someone so much their departure breaks you. Not everybody gets that. The truth is, I can’t live without her. So I don’t.”
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Add Light to the Dark
We may have lost someone we love deeply. Let’s find what we miss the most and get a little bit of that back in our world. When you have a hard day and it’s dark and heavy missing somebody you love, add a little lightness by bringing what you miss about that person back into the world.
They may seem so far away, but we’re always just one action away to honor and love them.
When you are so sad they are gone…find a way to bring them back.
Through you.
Small Shifts; BIG Gifts!
Think about someone you have loved and lost. How can you honor their legacy by bringing them back into this world through your language or actions?
About Suzanne Dailey
Suzanne Dailey is a proud member of the Teach Better Family! She is an instructional coach in the Central Bucks School District where she has the honor and joy of working with elementary teachers and students in 15 buildings. Suzanne is Nationally Board Certified, a Fellow of the National Writing Project, and has a master’s degree in Reading. She is dedicated to nurturing and developing the whole child and teacher. Suzanne lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.
Check out the Teach Happier Podcast here!
