Dear Kerry,
My grandmother died last year on my son’s 11th birthday. We were all very close to her. Now his birthday is coming up again. It feels awkward, but should I arrange his party anyway?
-MG, Massachusetts

Dear MG,
I am sorry for your loss and the sadness for all in your family. Time helps the acuteness of the feelings, but you will always miss your grandmother, and I am sure your son will too.

Life inevitably brings many challenges to kids and grownups — what’s important is how you take those opportunities to learn, grow and strengthen your emotional muscles. Then you can help your child develop strengths that he can use throughout his life.

The muscle that comes from engaging with the challenge you describe is learning to tolerate mixed feelings. Very small children can’t manage to have more than one feeling at a time. Think of how toddlers get completely filled up with their excitement or their anger or their persistence!

When they are mad, they forget that they also love you. It’s a big step to be able to hold on to love and anger at once. Parents can start helping even a 2 year old master this step by reminding him that their love and his love are still there even when he’s mad.

As children grow, the combinations of feelings and wishes get more complex. Four year olds begin to think about time, change and death and wonder how to put them together with the stability and happiness of daily life. This is where parents and teachers can help children learn about the life cycle, the satisfactions of a full life, and acceptance of those things that no one can control.

Your about-to-be-12-year-old can encompass deep ideas and practice holding more than one feeling at a time if you help him by setting an example. Ignoring either the sad feelings or the happy anticipation of his birthday would give him the message that one or the other feeling is not acceptable.

The reality is that both feelings are there. Parents are the major interpreters of reality to children, even big kids in middle school! You can give him permission to feel happy about his birthday and sad about his great-grandma, as well as letting him know that it’s all right to enjoy himself. It’s not an either/or, and one feeling doesn’t have to take away from the other.

I imagine that your grandmother loved seeing her grandchildren and great-grandchildren enjoying themselves. How lucky she was to have that chance, and how lucky you all were to have her in your lives for so long!

I think you can have a good time arranging your son’s party. You can mention to him how much your grandmother would have liked his pleasure with his family and friends. She would have been glad to see him growing up so nicely.

Perhaps you can make a special time the day before or on the morning of the anniversary/birthday to set out some flowers or light a candle or look especially at your grandmother’s picture with the whole family. Then you can remember her together, share your sad feelings at missing her and acknowledge their presence in the midst of life proceeding.

This will build strengths your son can carry forward as life brings other losses and other joys.

Kerry Kelly Novick is a local child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst, and author, with Jack Novick, of "Emotional Muscle: Strong Parents, Strong Children," available at amazon.com or through