Testimony: Grieving, Healing, and the Holidays

Barb Detz knows well the depths of loss and grief. She was only 25 and the mother of two young sons, ages 20 months and 3 years, when her husband died suddenly from a heart attack while working on their farm. He was 27.

Devastated and alone, young and confused, Barb did not know how to grieve. Her family didn’t either.

“Nobody asked me how I was doing,” she said. “I couldn’t express emotions and feelings. I couldn’t mention his name. People would ignore it or wouldn’t respond. I let them tell me how to grieve.”

She followed her family’s advice. She moved on. She got up and did what she needed to do to care for her kids. And though she buried the hurt, it was still there.

“I cannot explain the pain,” she said. “I just felt there was pain inside where my heart was.”

She needed to express it. She needed to bring it up. She needed to remember.

It wasn’t until much later, in 2019, that she came to this realization. She had gone back to school, and the stresses of life finally pushed all of that grief out into the open.

Since then, she said, “I think I shed 30 years’ worth of tears. That was the Holy Spirit working.”

She was finally able to talk about what happened, and she discovered healing in a process that had for too long been delayed.

This time of year, those dealing with grief – no matter how long it has been – face unique struggles. The season is centered around tradition and gatherings…and reminders of what you no longer have.

Barb’s husband died in July. She struggled through October, what would have been their sixth anniversary, and then faced her first holiday season without him.

“The first [Christmas] was the hardest,” she said.

“It’s a big celebration, everybody’s excited, and planning. But you don’t have that person there that was always there.”

Because Barb understands the hurt and fear of navigating such times, she recently began co-coordinating a GriefShare program, which offers a “Surviving the Holidays” session around this time each year.

“You have to do something, to make it so that you can survive,” she explained. “If you need to talk about them, talk about them, whether the other person wants to hear it or not.”

In most cases, others don’t bring up the subject because they are trying to protect you or don’t want to upset you, she said. Or, perhaps like Barb felt, you don’t want to upset others. She especially didn’t talk to her mother-in-law after her husband’s death.

“We’re both thinking about the other person,” she said, “but it wasn’t helping either one of us. You have to make it your pain…you have to feel it to heal it.”

If you are dealing with grief this year, you may find yourself in a place where you are being invited to celebrations. Surviving the Holidays advises that you “always leave an out,” Barb said. “Don’t take a ride with somebody, so you can leave when you’re getting overwhelmed. Feelings come and go.” So be free, she said, to go to another room, or to get in the car and leave.

Also, those grieving are encouraged to find their own tradition.

“Light a candle for all the loved ones that aren’t there,” Barb said. And “Bring it up. Don’t bury that elephant.”

“People might not want to cry,” she said. “They may not want to feel the pain themselves and cry, and they may not want to talk about it. It hurts. But it helped me to talk about it.

“The way we get our top and bottom brain to work together is storytelling,” she added. “If I had done that, I might not have blamed God.”

She also would have been able to help her kids through their own process of grief. Though they were very young, they struggled later on to come to grips with losing their father so suddenly and at such a young age.

For Barb, though she had blamed God for many years, it was only by leaning on Him that she found healing.

“God is our hope,” she said, quoting Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

“That’s the only way you can get through it and deal with it. If you take that grief and blame God, you’re not going to let Him heal you.

“What you’re feeling is ok,” she added. “You are allowed to feel it. Share what you’re feeling. Share it with the Lord first, then somebody you can talk to.”

Barb is grateful for how the Lord has walked with her, even during that long time she had struggled to understand and carried around the pain. She can now look back and see how He had been ordering her steps, coordinating so many details of her life to eventually bring her to a place of healing. And now, to a place where she is helping others dealing with the same pain.

“God has it all worked out,” she said. “Praise the Lord.”