With the holidays coming up, many families will have an empty seat at their table for the first or what seems like the millionth time without a certain somebody joining in on the holiday festivities.

In life, you are bound to lose someone that has meant a lot to you. But when it comes to the holidays, it can seem overwhelming to go through a holiday without them. For some, it may be the first major one without them, or it may be another year without them but it is okay to feel sad because they're not there.

Grief comes in stages and sometimes it feels like you relapse and feel the pain all over again. Missing someone is okay but what you have to remember is that they're always watching and they wouldn't want you to be sad. I know my dad wouldn't want us sad on Christmas so we retell stories and we remember him.

We remember the way he laughed, his countless jokes that weren't always funny, and we remember how he was the life of the party. We still put a name card out for him and my great grandparents and we continue to talk about them. If we don't talk about them we forget our loved ones' legacies and who would want that?

We don't have to remember them just around the holidays, you remember them every day and how they were the life of the party. Always tell stories to the little ones so they can know the person they never really knew. We do that with my cousin Aileen who was just under three years old when he passed away. She can still pick out Uncle Larchie in pictures and she knows who we talk about when he's brought up.

In the end, everyone has someone to remember during the holidays and everyone has pain to deal with. If we are all kind to one another, it makes the grieving process a whole lot easier.