The first year after losing someone is a year of firsts. The first birthday without them. The first holiday season. The first anniversary. The first time you do something you always did together without them beside you. Each of these firsts arrives like a small collision, because you have never done this particular thing without them before, and now you have to discover what it feels like.
This is why grief counselors often say that the first year is frequently the hardest — not because the second year is easy, but because the first year contains all the firsts, and each one requires its own kind of adjustment.
Knowing they are coming can help. If you are still in the first year, think ahead to the significant dates and plan for them. What will you need? Who do you want to be with, or do you want to be alone? Is there something you want to do to mark the day — a ritual, a remembrance, a way of honoring both the date and the person?
Be gentle with yourself about each first. You have not done this before. You are allowed to get it wrong, to not know how to behave, to feel completely undone. There is no correct way to navigate your first Christmas without your mother, or your first wedding anniversary without your spouse. You will find your way through it, and the way you find will be yours.
Let yourself be supported on the hard days. Tell the people close to you what is coming: "This weekend is going to be hard because it's our anniversary." Give them the opportunity to show up. Most people want to help and simply do not know what the hard dates are for you.
And when the first year ends — when you have survived every one of the firsts — give yourself credit for something that was genuinely hard. You did not know how you would do it. You did it anyway. The second year has its own challenges, but it does not have the same unbearable weight of the all the firsts.