Dealing with death at holiday time a challenge for many

WASILLA — With just 22 shopping days left before Christmas, this would be Pete “Pedro” Kozak’s favorite time of year.

“He loved to shop, oh, he was a shopper,” wife Maria Kozak said with a chuckle Friday afternoon while dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “He shopped more than a woman. In fact, he ruined our 13-year-old for shopping, that’s for sure. When she was little, she’d take her little cart (shopping) with him and he’d let her load it up with whatever she wanted.”

Little things like shopping and Pete’s love of NASCAR are what pop into Maria’s head when remembering her husband, who died April 19 at age 47 due to complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Like many of her Valley neighbors, the Kozak family is struggling to deal with a painful loss during the holiday season.

“It’s excruciating,” Maria said of enduring her first holidays without her husband. “In fact, we just went through our hardest week. Monday was seven months (since Pete’s death), then Tuesday was his birthday, then Thursday was our first Thanksgiving without him. That was very rough, very rough.”

With the exception of a two-year break in the mid-1990s, Maria and Pete had been together since 1991, and married in 1998.

Grief and depression can be isolating emotions, especially during times when family is emphasized, but the Kozak family isn’t alone. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 of every 10 U.S. adults is depressed. The center’s 2011 depression estimates, the latest available, show 9.1 percent of adults in the United States suffer from some form of depression, including grief. Mississippi has the highest overall rate at 14.9 percent, while Alaska ranks as the fourth lowest depressed state in the nation at an estimated 6.4 percent.

Don’t expect those numbers for the Last Frontier to offer much encouragement for Maria or her family. With the help of Mat-Su Regional Homecare and Hospice, Pete’s final time was more comfortable and the group’s post-death family bereavement counseling was invaluable, Maria said. Along with a strong faith and fellowship from her church, Palmer Pentecostal, Maria said she finds strength to deal with her grief, but it hasn’t been easy.

“We honored him (for his birthday) and it was my oldest daughter’s decision to make all his favorites, so we all got in the kitchen and made all his favorite food and blasted his favorite music and we just bawled our eyes out,” Maria said. “We cried a lot and I called my church and said it’s going to be a very hard week for us, so pray for us.”

Pete’s favorite was Mexican food, she said, but they also made meat loaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, and even a pineapple upside-down cake. They also drank milk.

“We’re not really milk-drinkers,” she said. “But he was.”

Rather than bury their grief, Maria said her family tries to do things to remember and honor Pete. They keep busy, “yet we still find the time to honor him every 19th of the month by letting balloons off with personal messages to him,” she said.

Their youngest daughter also had an idea for Christmas, to hang up her father’s stocking.

“She shared her idea for Christmas, which is to put his stocking out and we’re each going to put things (from) him that touched us throughout our lives,” Maria said. “On Christmas Eve, we’re going to pull those out and go through them together.”

Things that allow people to express their grief and feelings are good, said Ginny Stocker, volunteer services coordinator for Mat-Su Regional Homecare and Hospice. Knowing that the holidays can be especially hard times for people dealing with loss, hospice is hosting a free seminar Monday. Asked for advice for how to cope through this time, she said the Kozak family is doing some creative things.

“The first piece of advice is to come to our seminar Monday night,” she said. “Joel Carter is doing the presentation, and he has 30 years experience as a counselor, so he’s been through the process a lot.

“Maria also has some very good ideas about honoring the person through the holidays and remembering them, not trying to shy away from them and making it totally about them. Yet, you don’t want to focus on (loss) to the extent you’re ignoring those who are still here.”

Juggling personal grief while also trying to be strong for her children has been difficult, Maria said. The first major holiday hurdle came only two months after Pete’s death, Father’s Day. When asked about this year’s Father’s Day, she tears up and can barely speak.

“That’s a role I play now,” she whispers.

She also knows her husband wouldn’t want the family to be overwhelmed with grief.

“He would want us to go on,” she said. “He wouldn’t want us to be suppressing our feelings. He would want me to continue our traditions with our children, to not let those die.”

In her family’s case, they knew Pete was terminally ill. He began displaying symptoms of ALS in January 2009 and was diagnosed in July 2009. He lived for nearly three years after that as his body degenerated.

“I had three years to deal with it and prepare,” Maria said. “I knew this disease was going to take my husband, but you can never be really prepared. You think you’re going to be prepared, but when it happens, it’s a whole other story.”

Contact reporter Greg Jonson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.

What: Handling grief and loss during the holidays

When: 7 to 8:30 p.m., Monday

Cost: Free

Where: Mat-Su Regional Outpatient Center, Wasilla