In Scotland, where summer is let’s be honest somewhat fleeting – a brief burst of light and warmth between long winters and now seemingly over by May – the summer season here as elsewhere can sharpen grief for people. While shorter days are often linked to loneliness, the pressure to “make the most” of Scotland’s precious sunny months can make bereavement feel even more isolating.
Being honest I have probably never thought of summer as a hard season for those who are bereaved until I was stopped in my tracks the other day by someone who said to me that they hate summer – not because of the weather – but because the long days and nights makes their loneliness more intense. And there was me thinking that the cold winter days were the hardest season for grief.
But then I began to think of my own childhood holidays and upbringing. No sooner had the school bell beckoned the end of the term – and sometimes even before – I was packed off with a few clothes onwards to Skye and long days on beach and croft.
For many older Scots, summer once meant Highland holidays, Doon the Water adventures, garden gatherings, or coastal walks with family and loved ones. Now, the same light highlights an absence for many. Norman MacCaig captures this well in ‘Memorial’:
“Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies.
No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain
but has her death in it.”
Published in 1991 the poem laments the loss of his sister Frances and described how his loss is ever present, in season and out. It is constant.
Summer is often portrayed as a season of joy – long days, family gatherings, and the warmth of the sun. But for many older people, especially those who are bereaved, summer can amplify loneliness rather than ease it. While winter is frequently associated with isolation and depression, the expectation of happiness in summer can make grief feel even more isolating.
Grief does not fade with the seasons. Grief does not melt in the sun. It lingers. For older adults, summer’s sensory richness – the scent of cut grass, the sound of children playing, the warmth of the sun – can trigger vivid memories of loved ones no longer present.
A 2023 report by the Mental Health Foundation Scotland found that 28% of over-75s felt lonelier in summer, citing “seeing others socialise” as a trigger. Age Scotland’s 2022 survey revealed that 42% of bereaved older adults avoided summer events (e.g., community galas) due to grief reminders. And in my own memory corners research from the University of the Highlands and Islands highlighted that older bereaved adults in rural areas face compounded loneliness in summer, as tourism and visitor traffic contrast with their static sorrow.
Further still research from the University of Stirling found that seasonal changes can trigger memories, making anniversaries of loss more acute in summer. The contrast between external vibrancy and internal sorrow can lead to what psychologists’ call “disenfranchised grief” – sorrow that feels unwelcome or unacknowledged in a world that expects happiness.
It seems inescapable then that summer is hard and I suspect our targeting of issues such as loneliness lacks seasonal considerations. Indeed, organisations offering grief support such as Cruse Scotland report higher demand for counselling in June-August.
One of the challenges of bereavement in older age is that it often goes unseen. A 2020 study by the University of Manchester found that older people are significantly less likely to seek formal bereavement support, despite reporting high levels of prolonged grief and emotional distress.
In care homes or supported housing, expressions of grief may be muffled by a desire not to burden others, or silenced by the myth that older people are somehow “used to death.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Every loss is unique. Every goodbye leaves its own scar.
And in summer, the world’s brightness only sharpens the shadow of absence.
Added to this much of our cultural language around grief is shaped by stages and steps like with neat boxes of denial, anger, acceptance. But grief, particularly in older age, is cyclical, tidal. It comes in waves that make nonsense of calendars.
A warm June day might bring unbearable heartache for someone whose partner died last summer. A July sunrise may spark memories that lead to tears over breakfast. As researchers like Stroebe and Schut argue in their dual process model, healthy grieving involves oscillating between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented experiences.
In other words, older people grieve and live at the same time. They water the garden and weep for who are not there to see it bloom.
So how can we, as communities, care providers, neighbours, respond?
First, by acknowledging. By refusing the polite silence that often follows death, particularly in older age. We need to create cultures in our care settings – and in wider society – where grief is not only allowed but welcomed, named, shared.
Second, by creating opportunities for ritual and remembrance. Summer is a perfect season for memory walks, remembrance gardens, shared poetry readings, and intergenerational storytelling. We need not wait for anniversaries or official memorials to honour those who are gone.
As the poet Mary Oliver wrote in When Death Comes:
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.”
Older people carry with them lives of amazement, love, and loss. We owe it to them to witness the whole of it, especially in seasons that hide sorrow in sunshine.
In our policy and practice, we talk about trauma-informed care. Let us also be grief-informed, attuned not just to clinical depression but to the slow ache of bereavement. Let us train staff not only in medications but in listening; not only in safeguarding but in soul-holding.
And let us never forget that love, when lost, does not disappear. It becomes memory, it becomes pain, it becomes the quiet pause in a summer afternoon when an older person turns toward a seat that used to be filled.
Grief does not fade because the sky is blue.
But neither does it mean the absence of joy forever. For even those in sorrow, there can be glimpses of laughter, tastes of delight, moments of music.
And sometimes, that is enough.
The Skye poet Eilidh Watt (nee Macaskill) brought up in the village next to where I spent so many summer holidays, once wrote:
“You were the tide in June, full and fierce,
And now I walk the shore alone,
Seaweed in hand, memory on skin,
And no echo of your voice in the gull’s cry.”
Donald Macaskill
If these themes interest you – you might want to join the Scottish National Bereavement Charter Group at a free event in Glasgow on the Future of Bereavement on 28th August 20025 – more details here https://scottishcare.org/the-future-of-bereavement-support-in-scotland-28-august/
