What Abi Taught Us (23 page)

Chapter 18

Rituals and mourning the dead

PUBLIC MOURNING RITUALS
, such as funerals, have a clear purpose. By gathering people together around the bereaved, they help mourners strengthen their bonds and re-enter the social world after a major loss. But establishing
personal rituals
to help us mourn our dead is increasingly recognised by bereavement researchers as an effective mechanism for coping better after loss. We're not talking traditional mourning rituals here—wearing black, sitting shiva, post-funeral wakes (though these of course are vital for some)—but regular, repetitive actions that bring back memories of those who have died.

American researchers Michael Norton and Francesca Gino asked 76 research participants to write about a significant loss (the end of a relationship or the death of someone they love) and
to describe how they coped with that loss, including any rituals they engaged in.
¹
(These researchers defined ritual as ‘a symbolic activity that is performed before, during, or after a meaningful event in order to achieve some desired outcome'.) They were surprised to discover that only 10 per cent of the described rituals were performed in public; 5 per cent were performed communally, and only 5 per cent were religious in nature. Most of the rituals were therefore private, routinely practised rituals that were unique to the individual. For example, one woman who lost her mother would ‘play the song by Natalie Cole “I miss you like crazy” and cry every time I heard it and thought of my mom'. One man mourning his wife wrote: ‘In these fifteen years I have been going to hairdressers to cut my hair every first Saturday of the month as we used to do together.' Another widow in the study described how she washed his car every week just as her husband used to do.

When I described these type of rituals to an academic colleague, he suggested them to be painfully sad, saying he'd worry they were more likely to exacerbate depression and misery among mourners than help them heal. I was surprised by this reaction. For me, the value of rituals was immediate and obvious. The rituals we conduct in memory of the dead bind us to them, they work to maintain our connection with them and, specifically, allow us to continue to acknowledge
our loss—at a specific time, place or fashion—while getting on with our ‘normal' lives the rest of the time. In short, they provide something of a long-term solution, enabling us to grieve and maintain normal functioning simultaneously. They are, in essence, the answer to moving forward but retaining the dead in our lives. In this sense, I can see how they lead to the ‘improved coping' found in Norton and Gino's study, but I did note on re-reading their work that they have yet to investigate the impact of rituals among people experiencing what clinicians refer to as ‘complicated grief '.

Subsequent experiments by Norton and Gino have confirmed the power of rituals to mitigate grief. In a second experiment, the researchers invited 247 grieving people into their lab and had them write about their loss, describing the emotions and thoughts they experienced at the time of loss in detail.
²

The researchers then divided participants into two groups: a ‘ritual group' and a ‘no-ritual group'. Participants in the ritual group were asked to write about a ritual they performed following the loss. Here, as in the previous study, many people reported private, personal and emotionally moving rituals that connected them to the memory of their lost loves in a deep and powerful way. After the writing exercise was over, the researchers measured the grief of the participants in both conditions. As one would expect, people in both groups became sad doing the exercise, but the people who wrote about rituals were
less sad
. They reported significantly less grief than those who did not write about rituals. Those in the ritual group, for example, were less inclined to endorse statements (from a standard scale used to measure grief) such as ‘I feel that life is empty without this person', ‘Memories of this person upset me' and ‘I feel
stunned or dazed over what happened'. What is interesting about this research is the discovery that the benefits of rituals accrued not only to individuals who professed a belief in rituals' effectiveness as part of the study but also to those who did not. Meaning, whether you like the idea of rituals or not, they can still help you grieve.

Norton and Gino suggest that the reason rituals help us grieve is that engaging in them helps restore a sense of control and order when we are otherwise feeling utterly powerless. Part of the magic in grieving rituals is that they are deliberately controlled gestures that help counteract the turbulence and chaos that follow loss. Crucially, these researchers also point out that rituals may not only reduce negative emotions, but also increase positive emotions.

I have developed myriad rituals since Abi, Ella and Sally died. Some of them I do regularly, some infrequently, but all of them I do to honour those we lost, and to retain their presence in our lives. I recently made a wreath out of gathered wild foliage in memory of Sally, and I frequently walk out to the local headland she loved to run on. Doing so offers me the right space and time to think of her. I will make meringues this summer using her recipe, the one the girls loved so much.

Devising rituals will be instinctive for some, but Norton and Gino's findings give encouragement for those who are not natural ritual-makers, but who might like to give it a go.

Rituals to commemorate

Rituals are effective and meaningful when they have significance to the deceased and to the survivor. The following are merely suggestions and might be altered and enhanced to appropriately accommodate the relationship involved. The following list features in the
Grief Counseling Resource Guide
created by the New York State Office of Mental Health.

• Prepare a favourite meal of the loved one and enjoy it as he/she did.

• Prepare a favourite dessert—share with family or friends.

• Watch a movie(s) enjoyed by your loved one.

• Plant flowers, a tree or a flowering bush in memory of your loved one.

• Enjoy a toast to your loved one on a birthday, anniversary or holiday.

• Light a candle and recall the comfort or guiding light he/ she was for you.

• Read book(s) or article(s) on a favourite topic(s) he/she enjoyed.

• Play music appreciated by your loved one and see if you can enjoy it now.

• Attend a concert/performance that would be pleasurable to you both.

• Look through photo albums and focus on shared times and memories.

• Wear a piece of jewellery that was a favourite of the person.

• Wear cologne or perfume he/she liked on you.

• Wear an item of clothing given to you by him/her.

• Buy something for yourself he/she would like you to have.

• Enjoy lunch or dinner at a favourite café/restaurant.

• Visit the burial place—bring a balloon or symbolic item to leave.

• Journal some favourite stories.

• Travel to a place he/she enjoyed or always wanted to visit.

• Review how your life is better because he/she was a part of it.

• Focus on the gift he/she was to you.

• Purchase flowers on the anniversary. Bring for display at church or a home gathering. When people leave, have them take a flower.

• Send flowers to a close family member on the anniversary.

• Read a favourite poem(s) or book enjoyed by your loved one.

• Watch home videos and remember.

• Volunteer for an organisation in memory of your loved one.

• Become an activist in the cause of death issue—by participating in a walk-a-thon, phone-a-thon, etc.

• If you kept greeting cards given to you by your loved one, take time to read them again.

• Enjoy a leisurely walk, taking time to recall shared events in life together.
³