For anyone going through the holidays after the loss of a loved one, I have learned not try to celebrate the holidays as you always have in the past. It is important to try to make your holidays somehow different because they will never be the same. If you try to make the holidays the same (guests, traditions, seating at the table, anything), the absence will be even more evident. This advice really helped me make it through my first Thanksgiving and first Christmas. It is important to realize that life will never be the same, so don’t try to make it the same.
Judy Schuldt, FL, lost her husband Michael, 51, on TWA Flight 800, July 17, 1996
