I’m still replaying scenes of gathering with siblings and being humbled by the presence of family and friends who made the trip to be with us in Florida and stood in a circle as we placed the cremains in the columbarium and sang “God be with you ’til we meet again.”
“Mourning rituals contribute to healing by helping to organize our thoughts and actions in times of profound emotional disorientation… They also provide some structure and social support when the pillars of familiarity have been ripped out of our lives. Rituals give us ways to mourn with dignity as we express our emotions in alignment with our deepest values, regardless of what the wider culture might say about the value of our pain.”
Generation Dread, by Britt Wray, p. 208-209
This quote came from a book I read earlier this year about climate anxiety, but it really resonated more deeply with me about grief and anxiety generally. This chapter was about the value of public and communal mourning rituals, which I read in May of this year while also having conversations with my mom about my dad’s decline and what would be meaningful to us in terms of mourning his death–which we knew was imminent but thought was still a ways down the road. What did we think we would do because of what (we thought) would be meaningful to him? What would be meaningful to us?
Five months later, I am still trying to make sense of the experience of reading the emails saying he was going on oxygen and wasn’t able to swallow medication to control his fever. I’m still trying to make sense of waking up after a fitful night of sleep where I ended up dozing on the couch and checking my watch for the time and seeing that a text message had come in from my mom saying that “your father passed at 4:30 a.m.” I’m still trying to reflect on the powerful experience of formatting and guiding a funeral service that I felt responsibly spoke to the authentic pieces of who my dad was at his best and how he would want his life to be witnessed to. I’m still replaying scenes of gathering with siblings and being humbled by the presence of family and friends who made the trip to be with us in Florida and stood in a circle as we placed the cremains in the columbarium and sang “God be with you ’til we meet again.”
But even as I’m still trying to process and make sense of this experience of loss that we have been through, I see that the author was on to something that doesn’t seem profound but is easy to minimize–mourning rituals contribute to healing by helping to organize our thoughts and actions in times of profound emotional disorientation. I have the phrase “profound emotional disorientation” underlined in an entry in my journal followed by the comment: Yep–that’s what these days feel like. I definitely experienced the structure and social support that organizing and guiding a funeral service, reception, interment service and family meal provided.
The author was making a point that there is a reason to name and hold space for mourning rituals related to the loss and disruption of climate change. Whether it’s holding a vigil for creation, a rally for peace, or a funeral for a loved one, I tend to agree–rituals give us ways to mourn with dignity as we express our emotions in alignment with our deepest values, regardless of what the wider culture might say about the value of our pain.