Essays And Books To Read During Your First Holidays After Someone Dies

I was only 11 years old my first holiday season without my mom. As a result of my family and the culture they were raised in, there was no real space made to help guide me through those first holidays. When I was 21 years old and lost my grandma, I had a deeper understanding under my belt of what grief was and what it demanded of me.

During that first holiday season without her in 2014, I tried my best to find solace in places that made sense for me. I’ve always loved to find myself in books. Harry Potter is one of my favorite series for that exact reason - it was life-changing to me to see someone whose grief actually made them both more human and more magical all at once.

While the below reads aren’t necessarily the ones that guided me during my go arounds at the first holidays, it is the list I wish I had. I’m sharing works of poetry, links to articles, and full-length books, all which will hopefully offer a hand for you to hold when you feel like no one else’s fits in yours.

Nobody’s Son by Mark Slouka - The New Yorker

I remember what I was doing when I first read this piece and then I remember what I did immediately afterwards. I happened upon Mark Slouka’s piece in The New Yorker two months before my grandmother officially passed, but a month after we realized death was a matter of when and not if.

He starts off with “I lost my father this past year, and the word feels right because I keep looking for him.” and I felt gutted.

The new grief I was feeling about my grandmother’s health decline and eventual loss was tangling up in messy ways with the grief I felt because of my mom’s death almost a decade earlier at that point.

Reading in the midst of grief is about finding lifelines that will help you get to the next day. 6 years since reading this essay, I still turn to Mark Slouka’s words whenever I need to throw myself a ladder.

Without by Donald Hall

I am pretty sure I borrowed and never returned a copy of Donald Hall’s book. It’s comforted me so many times over the years. As I was working on a book proposal a few months ago I pulled this quote as one of the chapter intro quotes — “Dying is simple,” she said. “What’s worst is…the separation.” from the poem “Last Days.” In the thick of the holidays, in the thick of grief, we tend to realize how easy the “death” part of grieving is when compared to how long (and everpresent) the living part of grief is. Poetry is also to me one of the easiest ways to get through the door when you want to feel seen but are afraid of facing the grief feelings, which can happen often during the holidays.

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

Any “Books You Should Read After Someone Dies” list will include A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis and they are right to include it. The title gives away the thread that connects all the pieces, but more than that it speaks to us experiencing someone tangibly observing the nature, wildness, and rawness of their own grief and by default getting a chance to do the same with our own. It’s easy to feel apologetic or shameful by how much our grief weighs at any single period of time, understanding it helps us feel a little less ashamed.

Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

I recommend this book to everyone for multiple different reasons. While it isn’t a book on grief, it is a book on being present which is what most of grief (especially during that first year) requires. I grow uncomfortable in staying still and when I’m anxious, I’m pushed to want to just do more, more, more. Turning to this book during the most unmanageable days will help ground you.

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

Some books on grief you read because you want to sit in the feelings and the feelings alone, other books you read because you want to be guided, as well as seen. Option B is for the latter. This book will be good for those nights when you want to know how to tactically go towards what’s next, whatever that means.

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Getting lost in someone else’s story is a breath of fresh air. You can’t go wrong picking up a Jennifer Niven book, but I have a special place in my heart for All The Bright Places because it was one of the first young adult books who spoke to what happens after someone dies and doesn’t just focus on all that happens before. Through her characters Niven helps show how layered and exposed grief makes us and how navigating it, especially at the beginning, takes kindness and understanding that our best is still our best even when it doesn’t feel like it is.

Do you have any books you would add to the list?