Celebrating Life and Death

Spent an amazing summer and fall thinking about grief and recovery.

My time in China exploring grief and loss rituals taught me about the importance of “continuing bonds” in the grief process. One of the most exciting books on bereavement by George Bonanno, The Other Side of Madness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us about Life After Loss, addresses the issue of the importance of continuing bonds in the grief process. I loved my time in China because for the first time I “got” how the grief process need not be steeped in hopelessness and despair. Instead, an important element is how to live with loss, move forward while not ever forgetting.

Also, I had the opportunity to meet and share time with widows at both Camp Widow in San Diego, and the widowed community in Arizona at the WCESS conference ‘Tools for the “New Normal’ Journey this past weekend. The widowed community is providing invaluable support to those bereaved people who can access these resources.

My takeaways from both conferences are many. Off the top of my head, I see the importance to educate all of us about the grief process and HOW to respond to a person bereft with grief. At each conference on each message boards there are long discussion of the inappropriate comments many folks make to grieving people. Clearly, all are aware that is is merely ignorance, but in any event those comments wound and wound deeply.

My second takeaway was the number of folks who are active on the internet either in Facebook groups, blogs, websites dealing specifically with loss of the spouse. My heart aches as many of these widows are young women who have lost their “soul mates”  fighting wars for the United States. Their blogs are pithy and short, their stories painful to read. The young widow is raging her own war to get support and aid from her fellow mourners, good for her. And, very unlike many of my peers in an older demographic. Perhaps one way children can help their grieving parents is to help them navigate the internet for support.

My final takeaway is the need for us culturally to develop rituals which support a way to honor our ancestors. Fortunate for me, the celebration which corresponds with Halloween, Día de los Muertos,The Day of the Dead, was being celebrated at the Botanical Garden in Tempe, AZ. As I did in China, I learned some fascinating things from two Mexican artists who were selling their art work .

Despite the language barrier, it was clear that death in Mexican culture is embraced as part of the life cycle in much the same way it is in Eastern cultures. In both of these cultures death is celebrated as part of life and in that celebration the ancestors live on and are honored in ceremony during the year. Grave sweeping and decorating in both of these cultures are a time of celebration and hoopla. The closest thing we have is Memorial Day where we place red-white-and blue planters on graves. However, what seems absent is the true celebration of family history.

So, my journey now is to explore how we might find rituals which serve to sustain loved ones during times of grief as part of the whole recovery process

Why not learn to share and celebrate communally the lives of those who are no longer with us in physical form, but who live on with us forever ?

Because as we all know, death is inevitable. Why not learn tools which aid in recovery ?

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