Have you ever noticed that your grief feels more present at the first hint of a warm breeze in the Spring or the first crunch of a leaf under your shoe in the fall? You’re not alone. Seasonal grief can impact people across the lifespan and is often a normal part of loss. 

‍

Why Seasons Affect Our Grief

1. Symbolism

In autumn, the falling leaves symbolize the lifecycle, reminding us that everything, and everyone, dies. Winter brings bare trees and with it a symbol of the loss of life. In Spring and summer we are reminded that life regenerates. This can feel hopeful while being an ever-present reminder that although life can become new, the one we lost is still gone. 

2. Senses

Our senses are deeply connected to our emotions (Rouby et al., 2016). The smells, sounds and even the physical feeling of the temperature change can influence how we experience our grief as they bring up memories of spending time with our loved ones during each season. 

3. The passing of time

With each season, we feel the passage of time, each change marking another few months spent without our loved one physically near us. It can feel like time is getting away from us and creating distance from the acute grief that marks the loss of someone we love. 

4. Traditions and holidays

Sometimes it can feel like there's a holiday every other day when you’re in the thick of grief, and maybe even years later. With so many holidays throughout the year, it can be a specific kind of torment to see everyone celebrating while you’re going through the darkest moments of your life. 

When all you want to do is find a time machine, the last thing you want is to celebrate a holiday without your loved one. This pain can be isolating and difficult to avoid as you pass the greeting card section in retail stores or receive marketing emails reminding you to buy something for mom in May or dad in June. 

5. Dates and anniversaries

As seasons mark the passage of time, we often feel the weight of upcoming death anniversaries or dates of important moments we spent with those who have passed. While the world around us continues to change, our grief often remains quietly present. 

‍

Grief Doesn't Have a Timeline

Grief doesn’t have a specific timeline. In fact, many people report that it lasts a lifetime. Tonkin’s model of grief suggests that rather than grief going away completely, it stays with us as we grow around it (Tonkin, 1996). Close your eyes and imagine your grief as a ball inside of a small jar. Now imagine that with each passing year, the jar becomes bigger while the ball remains the same size. This metaphor can help us understand that our capacity for grief and the life we live around it expands as time goes on. The seasons repeat each year and with every change in temperature, we are growing with and around our grief. 

How to Move Through Seasonal Grief

So, where do we go from here? It is often said that grief is the truest expression of love. Still, as we carry this grief with us throughout our lives, it can be difficult to know how to move through it. Here are some things to keep in mind on your grief journey:

Making meaning:

Making meaning out of grief is something that can be a deeply powerful way to find purpose and meaning in your life after a loss. This can look and feel different for each person. There is no right or wrong way to grieve.   

Continuing their legacy:

Maybe your loved one was a great cook- did they leave a cookbook you can learn some recipes from? Or maybe they were great at sewing or crocheting- can you pick up a new hobby that reminds you of them and allows you to continue where they left off? This can create meaning by allowing you to continue their work even after they are physically gone. 

Creating something new:

If your loved one had items that they loved, take some time to take care of them and maybe even turn them into something new. For example, if they had a magazine collection- can you make a collage? Or if they were an artist, can you frame some of their work and display it on your wall? This gives you an opportunity to honor their life while keeping meaningful pieces of them close.

Honoring their memory:

Is there anything you might be able to do to honor your loved one’s memory? This could look like planting a tree that you can see grow and change throughout each season or creating a scrapbook of photographs that you can look back on whenever you want to think of fond memories you have. 

Volunteering:

‍Sometimes it can be helpful to support others who have gone through similar experiences. If your loved one had an illness for example, it could be helpful to volunteer for a foundation that raises funds for those experiencing the same illness. 

Find ways to connect with your loved one:

‍Is there a favorite spot where you and your loved one used to sit and drink coffee by the beach? Or maybe a ritual you had of ordering pizza every Friday night? Revisiting these traditions can be a way to connect with your loved one even after death. 

‍

Practice Self-Compassion and Patience

It is important to be patient with ourselves throughout each season as we allow ourselves to experience how grief shows up in different ways. Self compassion is a practice that can be helpful in learning to be kinder to ourselves as we learn to grow with grief. 

Losing a loved one changes you and shifts your identity in more ways than one. As the seasons change, take the time to slow down and allow yourself to feel how you feel. It won’t be perfect, and sometimes it will feel messy, but I hope this can help remind you that your life is expanding around your grief, even if it feels slow or hard to see. The seasons change and so do you. 

‍

References

• Grief and the change of seasons. 
• Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief by Dennis Klass, Phyllis R. Silverman, and Steven Nickman
• Leaune, E., Lau-Taï, P., & Pitman, A. (2025). The phenomenon of bereavement anniversary reactions: An integrative systematic review. Death Studies.
• Meaning Reconstruction & the Experience of Loss by Robert A. Neimeyer
• Nordal, K. C. (2020, January 1). Grief: Coping with the loss of your loved one. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/families/grief
• Rouby, C., Fournel, A., & Bensafi, M. (2016). The role of the senses in emotion. Emotion Measurement, 65–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-100508-8.00003-5
• Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (1999). The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement. Death Studies.
• Tonkin, L. (1996). Growing around grief—another way of looking at grief and recovery. Bereavement Care, 15(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.1080/02682629608657376