It helped to read Journeys and realize anew that each person handles grief differently.
I’ve always felt that funerals and visitations were the hardest things to endure after the loss of a loved one. My husband died recently at age 90. We had been married for 65+ years. Our daughters, granddaughters, and I decided that we would have a brief service at the grave site and then later have a Memorial “Celebrating A Life” service.
Our daughter Nancy made all the arrangements for the Memorial service. I needed to “dig out” photos to display – from his childhood, our college life, our marriage, WWII and the Korean War, and some fun things that we shared. Our daughter Carol prepared and gave the eulogy honoring her Dad which included some of the humorous things he did and said during the girls’ childhood. Some friends in the audience talked about their experiences (both serious and funny) with him.
This activity occupied my mind during the first few weeks. It is helpful now to remember the good times (and some not so good i.e., the wars) and recognize again how very fortunate we have been.
Bereavement rituals are an importance part of the grieving process. Alice Parsons Zulli wrote about healing rituals for HFA:
Ritual is sacred. Rituals can help to restore a sense of balance to life. Although many of us create ceremonies or rituals for one occasion or another, few understand why rituals help in adjusting to change. Even fewer understand the power of ritual to strengthen the bonds that connect us. Caregivers can influence the grieving process through ritual, customs, and traditions, and they can be sensitive to, and draw from, diverse cultures to create therapeutic rituals.
It is natural to express ourselves with physical actions. Death and grief are experiences that may make us feel helpless or out of control as emotional and physical energy is thrown out of balance. Rituals or ceremonies link physical and mental expression in a way that allows us to express and act out feelings and beliefs.
It seems that nobody teaches us how to die or to companion someone who is dying, or how to grieve or help those who are grieving. Much of what we know about dying and grieving we have not been taught explicitly, but have "caught" from culture, religious beliefs, and family traditions.
Caregivers must incorporate ritual to teach and mentor those who are embarking upon the journey of dying and grieving.
Read more from this article, Healing Rituals: Powerful and Empowering by Alice Parsons Zulli, published in Living With Grief: Who We Are, How We Grieve.
