Holidays are extra hard when you’re missing someone. If someone you love has died, the hole they leave behind in your heart can ache more on days we associate with celebration and spending time with family. We’ve talked about holiday grief before (here, here, and also here), but it’s worth revisiting as we experience holiday grief again this year when we’re expected to be thankful yet can’t always deliver.

When my family sits down to any holiday meal, I can’t help but look at an empty chair, and think that my mother should be sitting there. In those moments, I am not thankful. I am not thankful for my grief. I am angry and sad and heartbroken.

Yet I attempt to put on a smiling face, or at least a neutral face, because I don’t want anyone to know that as they pass the dinner rolls and mashed potatoes, my thoughts are dwelling on death and the unfairness of it all.

It can be hard to see others enjoying a holiday and actually celebrating. It can make us feel separate. Alone in our grief. In these moments I can almost see the grief membrane around me, as if a bubble separates me from everyone else, and my grief is inside the bubble with me.

You are not alone if this Thanksgiving you’re not feeling very thankful or grateful. You don’t need to set aside your grief or pretend to be happy. It is still okay to cry on celebration days. It’s okay to show up to Thanksgiving and tell people that it is a hard day for you. People who truly care about you will understand and hold space for the pain you’re feeling.

Some people may have the perception that grief is a process that one can endure and eventually complete, but anyone who is grieving the death of a parent knows that this isn’t something that just ends one day. We will carry this grief with us always. We may have good days and even be happy sometimes, but our grief stays in our back pocket always.

The difference now as we continue on living after our parent has died is that we must learn to live while experiencing grief and joy together, and holidays are one of the toughest times we are forced to practice this new way of being. Your life now requires you to exist while holding grief in one hand and joy in the other. On holidays and during celebrations, we try to experience and focus on joy, but we also cannot set down the delicate glass sphere of grief we hold in our outstretched palm.

Somehow over time we must learn to cradle both our grief and our holiday joy, keeping both intact together. These feelings are often invisible and intangible, and yet the weight this exercise places on our backs and our hearts is immense. We need to strengthen our grief muscles. Maybe we will improve over time as we get older and stronger.

A yoga teacher once told me, as I was frustrated and falling in a balancing pose, that it’s called a yoga practice for a reason. “It’s a yoga practice, not a yoga perfect,” she noted. In the same way, you and I are showing up each day, and especially each holiday, chipping away at our grief practice. We breathe into it. Exhale. Reach a little farther. Pull back when it hurts too much. Rest when our bodies are tired.

We will keep on breathing. Focus on your breath in this moment. We can balance our grief and joy this holiday season. We don’t have to drop one to hold the other. Just remember there is a vast community around you of people just like you, who are grieving the loss of their mom or dad, who may also have a tear in their eye while they smile at a holiday dinner.

We’re in this grief practice together, and it’s perfectly okay if you don’t always feel thankful. If your lost parent is anything like mine, they might be there in that quiet space after your long exhale. They may hope to send you some joy. Just keep showing up for yourself. Keep breathing deeply. Check in with your heart and be gentle with yourself as we get through these days together.