The Evolution of Grief Through the Lens of the Holiday Card

I used to love the holiday card game.

Every year, I would scrutinize our photos with a kind of tender obsessiveness, looking for the one that captured our exact family sensibility in that moment. I wanted just the right mix of love or silliness or quirk. Something that said, this is us right now. I would pick the photo, choose a design that felt fun and personal, and proudly send it off to our closest friends and family.

And then William died, and all of that stopped.

There were no more photos of my whole, complete family to sift through. No more little rectangles of time where the five of us existed all together, smiling in the sunlight. I could not imagine sending a card without him in it, and there was no way to make a new photo that included him. So I stopped sending holiday cards. Entirely.

Receiving cards was its own heartbreak.

Holiday cards are tiny portraits of family life. They are full of smiling faces and children growing older. They are usually joyful. But the year after William died, nothing about them felt joyful. I was overwhelmed with jealousy. Every card reminded me that other families got to keep living and growing, while mine had been shattered. Other parents watched their kids get older, while my son would never take another school photo, never make another silly face, never have another holiday season on earth.

So that first year, I threw every card straight into the trash, without opening a single one.

The second and third year were no different. There was no universe in which I was going to let those photos stare back at me, showing me everything they still had and everything I had lost. I could not bear it.

And then something shifted. I don’t know why or how. Grief moves on its own timeline. In the fourth year, I felt a tiny opening. I got curious. I opened the envelopes and peeked inside. It did not hurt as much as I feared. I guess I was simply ready. Ready to hold a little of what once crushed me.

I still threw them away after we looked, but I let them cross the threshold.

Last year, we left them in a pile on the counter. Not displayed, but not instantly discarded either. They stayed a little longer. We stayed with them a little longer. It wasn’t a big moment, but it was a moment.

And now this year.

This year, my son Kai asked if we could hang the cards on the banister again, the way we used to before William died. The way we used to when card season felt fun and not painful.

And I said yes.

Yes. I am ready to see these families who are bright and merry and alive. I don’t have a neat explanation for why. I just feel ready in a way I wasn’t for years. So we hung them up.

And this year, for the first time since William died, I am sending out holiday cards too.

I chose a simple illustration from the stationery website. A little snow globe. No photos, no smiling faces. Just something quiet that holds a tiny piece of William for me. I signed it, Love, the Shaws. I didn’t list our first names. The question of whether to include William was too heavy. Maybe next year. Maybe not. In grief, every step is small. There is no right way. There is only what feels possible that day.

So if you have grieving friends on your holiday card list, keep them on it. Even if they haven’t sent a card in years. Even if you worry it might hurt. Even if you are unsure.

Because you never know. One year, they might be ready again.

Just like I was.