Empty chairs--the loved ones who have been part of our holiday meals for as long as we can remember. Some were our grandparents, some our parents, some spouses and siblings and some, our beloved children. Last year they were sitting right there in "their" chairs, sitting next to us, laughing and celebrating. This year, they are no longer sitting in those with us. How should we respond to the empty chairs, to the emptiness which fills our hearts with such sadness? Holidays are supposed to be such a time of joy, but how can we be joyful without them? Their chairs are empty, and our hearts are filled with heaviness. What do we do?

We have lost something profound, and we must realize it and verbalize it. We have lost our loved ones, those who have taught us and raised us and been our role models and teachers. They are gone and we are left to go on without them, and it hurts. Connected to our lives for so long, and now, suddenly, they are not here. A part of them still lives inside us, and that same part of us feels a bit deadened to life. It feels upside down, the dead are still alive while the alive are deadened. And we do not know how to fix it.

And we have lost even more. We have lost the order and the familiarity of sitting down together, in the very same seats that we sat in last year at this time. We felt safe and comfortable, everyone was in their correct chair, all was right with the world. But now, the order is all wrong. The seating is different, because the people sitting in those chairs are not the same as they were. When our loved ones die--or divorce out of the family--we are adrift, without rudders to guide us. Not only do we miss then, but we miss the certainty of the familiar. Who will sit in Papa's chair this year? How could anyone fill his chair, or his place in the family? When a matriarch or patriarch dies, the family roles are now also adrift. Who will be the next family leader? Who will chart the family's emotional direction, who will be the historian, who will be the family spokesman? Who will we call when a family crisis occurs? Death affects us in countless ways, many of them coming to the surface at our holiday celebration times.

What shall we do? How can we begin to create a "new normal" for our family? First, by verbalizing our feelings of loss. At the beginning of the holiday meal, why not take a minute or two to remember those not there this year. Go around the table and tell stories, laugh together at the good times of the past, cry together at the profound loss that has occured. Make the pain public, share the past so that you can then begin to create the future. After all, Papa or Mama may not be with you in person, but they will always be with you in spirit. Make their spirit a part of your family's Holiday meals, and then your loved ones will live on in your lives for as long as your memory of them lives on. And then you will have found and discovered one of life's great secrets--You are still alive! You can still be vibrant and passionate and committed to your yourself and your family no less than those who have gone on to their next journey. Life will be different without them, and you will help create that new life that will bring you and your family a new order, a new familiarity, a new sense of power and creativity. And that, my friends, is certainly worth a Holiday celebration, don't you think?

I am extremely proud to announce the imminent publication of my new booklet WHEN DEATH VISITS A JEWISH HOME: 99 ACTIONS FOR MOURNERS. This complete yet concise guide will prepare you for everything you will need to know when someone dies. From the actual moment of death and the preparation of the body; to the details of the funeral and the funeral itself; from the the Meal of Condolence to the shiva period and the Yahrtzeit observance, everything is there. The classical mourning phrases are included with English transliteration, together with a bibliography for further study. I am concluding final arrangements with my printer in Jacksonville, FL, and you will soon be hearing from me when it is ready for purchase. I am excited about this, and I hope you will be too.