When a loved one dies, many people think about the activities that the person loved and believe it will never be the same. While this sentiment can be true to some degree, it can lead families to stop doing something that the departed one enjoyed out of grief or the fear that it simply won’t feel right. In fact, keeping up family traditions can be a wonderful way to honor the loss and keep memories alive.
If your father or partner recently passed and you want to know how you can remember his love of boating, going boating might be the best approach.
Continue Important Family Traditions
Traditions often feel a little tarnished after the person who loved them most is no longer around to enjoy them, but that doesn’t mean you can no longer participate in them. Family traditions build and maintain bonds with your family members in a way that cements your love and understanding for what has gone before.
Continuing these traditions can help keep the memories alive especially for younger family members who may not have as many. By taking your children or grandchildren on boat outings that their father or grandfather loved, you can help them grow to love the experience as well. You may also find that keeping up the tradition can give you opportunities to talk about your wonderful memories with him.
Make Room for Grief
When families go through a grieving process, some people try to shut down their grief as if it were inappropriate or unnecessary. In fact, making space for grief is one of the best ways that you can find to move on after losing a partner or father. When you feel a rush of grief related to a particular moment on the boat, give yourself and the people around you the time to encounter it. Talk about your feelings, your memories or how you are coping with the loss.
If you think that you can’t discuss how you feel with your loved ones, you might consider therapy or widow support groups. Support from professionals and others going through similar experiences can give you the validation that you need to feel what you feel in the moment.
Enjoy Boating’s Therapeutic Benefits
While grieving, it’s common for people to stop doing small activities that used to bring them health and enjoyment. If you notice that you have discontinued these small acts of self-care, you might consider boating as an option to help you.
Boating involves several repetitive tasks that require some attention and lead to amazing results. Many people find that a return to some physical activity — whether they choose to go water-skiing or fishing — relieves stress and allows them to feel better. If nothing else, boating allows you to remove a variety of distractions and just be yourself in nature.
Build New Memories
Finding a way to live after losing a spouse or parent is the best thing that you can do to honor yourself and the relationship. For many people, the idea that they can’t do the same things a loved one enjoyed is one of the hardest parts of grief.
Although it can be tough to “move on” from significant loss, building a future is the most important part of getting back to life. Instead of viewing the death as an end of an era, you might consider looking at it as an opportunity to build a legacy. A great man who loved boating would be someone glad and grateful to know that his family continued with his passion, creating new memories that everyone can enjoy.
Losing a father or partner is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do, but you should know that you won’t really lose him. By keeping his memory alive continuing the boating traditions he loved so much, you can keep him close in your heart and mind.
The post Boating Memories: Honoring Dad Through Family Traditions appeared first on My Boat Life.
