What are The Lilac Days™?

The Lilac Days™ is a term I developed that refers to a specific period of time during the loss journey. It’s an addition to the vocabulary around grief and loss that can help you more clearly communicate your experience to others, and also supports clarity within yourself about what you are living through. Having a name for something is powerful.

What Are the Lilac Days™?

When a death or Shadowloss™ occurs, there is an increase in the level of stress we carry. Any death or Shadowloss is a significant change, and these are stressful events. Any major change, even one you chose yourself, can be stressful.

There is a period of time after the immediacy of a loss and when you ‘find your new normal’ (or feel that you have integrated the loss) that I call The Lilac Days™. It helps to describe—in plain language—that middle period.

When a loss happens, those first few hours, days and even weeks can be a blur. It’s when more people than normal are checking in, dropping food off, etc. It’s when you might still be off from work. At the very least, your life is disrupted to the point that it can feel disorienting. It can be hard to keep track of what day of the week it is, because the disruption and stress makes it hard to know for sure.

Then, once you get through that first part, you enter a period of time you might like to call The Lilac Days™ .

What’s Special About The Lilac Days™

You know you’re in The Lilac Days™ when you feel you haven’t found a complete ‘new normal’ yet. Maybe you have parts and pieces figured out, but not everything, and not as much as you’d like. You also aren’t in the immediacy of a loss, and the surge of people and disruptions has subsided. You might go entire days without noticing your loss, and then suddenly you are awash in overwhelm.

This is a period of time that is uncomfortable, but it’s uncomfortable because you are growing. Growing is uncomfy. Much like we feel discomfort as we move through puberty into adulthood, The Lilac Days™ are like the puberty of our loss. We are figuring out our new identity post-loss and are figuring out who we want to be. We might even feel like teenagers again when we notice unpredictable surges in emotion or perhaps when we act out of character.

It is within The Lilac Days™ that we prepare to bloom again. We aren’t blooming yet, but we’re trying to get to that point again.

Why Are They Called The Lilac Days™?

In the Victorian era, after a female left the period of full mourning in which she was expected to wear black, there was a color that was an acceptable transition color. You see, you didn’t go from wearing all black everyday from head to toe right into wearing neon green—no, there was a transition.

The accepted transition color was any Lilac or Mauve tone. Think purply-pinks, or pinky-purple tones. Much like the beautiful shades and variations found on a lilac bush!

They are The Lilac Days™ because we are in transition between the immediacy of a loss and whatever our ‘new normal’ will be.

Another reason I call them The Lilac Days™ is because the color lilac is a mix of red and blue. As we grieve, we often experience feelings of anger (red) and sadness (blue). Sometimes I say “I’m feeling Lilac” today, to explain that my grief has me feeling a mix of anger and sadness.

Many of our Lilac Days feel like how lilac looks. Your shade of lilac might be more blue than mine, but that’s how it goes, right? Some days we are sadder (more blue) and some days we are more angry (more red).

Is There a Connection to the Lilac Bush?

Lilacs have traditionally been given in some cultures around a specific rite of passage–graduation. The reason being that lilacs have a symbolic connection to confidence and hope. These are qualities we feel as we graduate from one stage of life, into another. Lilacs are early to bloom in spring, which coincides with the timing of most graduations as well.

In navigating life after loss, we ‘graduate’ from what it was like before, to what will be. The Lilac Days™ are like an extended graduation, so to speak. We are finding our confidence again, after navigating loss, and seeking hope for our future, one without what we loved and lost.

In my work as a Death Companion over the years, which has included work with hospice and a local cemetery, the lilac often appears. Many people have fond attachments to the smell of lilacs, and the positive memories they bring us. I can’t tell you the number of times people facing end of life have requested a lilac bunch to smell, as it’s something they know they’ll miss.

Many of the families I’ve worked with have often had a connection to the lilac as well—maybe Grandma had a 30-year-old lilac bush in the backyard, or perhaps Main St. in your town explodes in lilac blossoms each spring.

If the lilac carries a little extra meaning for you because of a fond memory, embrace it!

Lilac Days or Lilac Daze?

Once you learn about The Lilac Days™, it’s common to easily see it in your life. You might find yourself saying “I’m in the lilac days right now” or even be able to look towards the past and label specific periods of time.

One thing about the experience of the life in the lilacs is that as much as they are the Lilac Days, they are also the Lilac Daze. That’s because it’s often a fuzzy and distorted time of life.

As a Thanabotanist and plant-obsessed human, the Lilac Daze reminds me of what happens when I find a lilac bush in bloom. I drop whatever I am doing and run towards it, finding myself enveloped in their scent. The scent bloom is incredible. I loose track of time—I’m just wrapped in lilac.

The Lilac Days™ feel like that for me—a daze of navigating a big change in life.

Thank You!

If this is helpful for you, I encourage you to use use the term and share it with others. If you’re wondering why there’s a ™ symbol there, that’s because I am an independent thanatologist working to develop opportunities for my students to utilize in their work with Thanabotany™, Deathwork and Thanatology. If you’d like to use The Lilac Days™ in a for-profit manner, please contact me first. Educational usage is welcome and encourage as long as citation to me and a link to my website is included. Thank you for helping to support and protect my work.