Mind Matters: The other side of celebrations

I remember my mother managing to do it all for the holidays — from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas. She loved to decorate her little dress shop windows — autumn leaves to fake snow (the itchy fiberglass stuff). Living in the cramped rooms behind the store, we made do with a cardboard “fireplace” for the holidays. My little grade school imagination allowed that hearth to be as warm and inviting as any brick or stone edifice.

However, my innocence and delight in holidays became muted when I was 14. On Thanksgiving Day that year, my younger cousin, while delivering newspapers on his bicycle, was hit by a drunk driver. He died later that night. I remember my mother taking the call. While I sobbed into my pillow, I thought life would never be the same again. There was a sense of loss, not only of Roger, but of life as it was. Before this, I felt safe in the cocoon of family. Imperfect as it may have been, death hadn’t intruded. That a young boy could die had been out of the realm of possibility. Now mortality lurked, a shadow at my shoulder, no respecter of youth. The fragility of life suddenly shook me.

I’ve never gotten inured to the fact of death in life: how we may be resilient spirits, but our flesh is fragile.

This past year, on New Year’s Eve, my godchild, daughter of my first cousin, died at the age of 42 of an aneurysm. Since then there have been numerous young people I have known either directly or through their parents or grandparents who have died. And not to forget the young persons I knew who died earlier on.

Why am I reflecting on this now? Because holidays, even when they are not marked directly by a death, bring to mind our loved ones who are no longer physically present to us. Grief is all the more poignant at holidays when everything should be “merry and bright.”

Rather than hiding or swallowing our grief, we can honor it by, for example, lighting a candle at the dining table for our loved ones; setting a place at the table for loved ones; visiting the cemetery; engaging in conversation about our memories. These are just a few of the ways to celebrate a life lived. Thus it is that our resilience resides in encountering our fragility.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.