From time immemorial, human beings have used rituals to mark important moments in the life of the individual and community. Through my faith tradition, I have participated in many rituals:

• Baptism to welcome me into the church and acknowledge my membership
• Confirmation to affirm my commitment to the community
• Communion to remember divine sacrifice and our interconnection as members
• Marriage to bear witness to the union between my husband and me for lifetime partnership
• Memorials to honor the lives of family and friends upon their passing

I have also participated in initiation rituals for secular organizations through which I was welcomed into community and provided guidance on core tenets. I’ve had multiple rounds of graduations during which I celebrated the completion of significant milestones in academic (and social) progress. And there have been award ceremonies to give public recognition to achievement. All such moments acknowledge and cement connection… especially with accompanying parties!

In The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller speaks to the healing power of ritual when we are in the throes of grief. It provides an embodied process through which the community expresses its care and concern. It provides a holding space in which it is safe to release sorrow and address the need for healing and renewal. It reminds us that we are not alone in our grief.

Weller identifies three important functions that grief rituals provide:

• Transparent access to the transcendent for a palpable sense of the sacred
• Reparation to suture the tears in the soul
• Invitation to the denied and forgotten aspects of the psyche to come to the fore and release the intensity of felt emotion

“In ritual space, something inside us shimmers, quickens, and aligns itself with a larger, more vital element. We are released from the limiting constraints of our collective agreements, such as not showing our emotions in public, not bothering anyone with our troubles, and remaining stoic and self-contained within our pain. This release allows us to enter into a fuller expression of who we are.” – Francis Weller

Ritual provides a forum in which we can be seen and heard. It provides an opening through which we grant others permission to acknowledge our pain. It does not rid us of our wounds; it offers a compassionate means to tend to them. Per Weller, loving attention can help us move from being stuck in a place of sorrow toward a renewed sense of aliveness.

Most of us relegate this function to an established forum for expression. But we can create our own rituals to provide solace when needed.

A few years ago, a friend lost her beloved yellow Labrador retriever and took it upon herself to serve up a eulogy via email. She honored her companion of 12 years and the special moments that they shared. I’ve no doubt it helped her process her grief, and I was honored to be included in the circle of care.

The “going away party” allows for public expressions of farewell when dear friends or family relocate. I’ve been to several of them recently; my husband and I will be the featured guests at one this weekend. It will give us a time to bring closure to a major chapter in our lives and say good-bye to friends with whom we’ve shared a significant journey. With Zoom and social media, we’ll stay in touch, but I’ll grieve the immediacy of regular face-to-face contact.

Much as retirement brings freedom and flexibility, they also carry losses. We have limitations in our lifestyle that weren’t present in our youth; we’re less self-reliant. Mercifully, we remain in pretty fine fettle. But I’ll have to give due consideration to rituals we might establish to help us navigate the way forward.

“Grief stirs the heart. It is indeed the song of a soul alive.” – Francis Weller

The culture in which I was raised is not hospitable to grieving. We pride ourselves on being rugged individualists. From minor tugs at the heart to the most deeply rooted sorrows, we largely process such feelings alone or in the privacy of therapeutic relationships. We may bypass grief altogether through amnesia (forgetting) or anesthesia (numbing out) to avoid unpleasantness and get on with life.

Francis Weller’s book The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals and Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief calls for a different response. He argues that “grief is not a problem to be solved, not a condition to be medicated, but a deep encounter with an essential experience of being human.” We are meant to be open and vulnerable to all the joys and sorrows that attend to the natural rhythm of growth/progress and decay/death. That is the essence of leading a vital and full life.

Weller defines five gates through which we all experience grief: one familiar and four typically outside conscious thought.

First Gate: Everything We Have, We Will Lose. We learn early in life that all things are impermanent. Everyone and everything we know will eventually fall away from us. While grief is inevitable, it also reminds us that we dared to love. We’re admonished not to let grief become a weight that drags us down or to allow our feelings to go underground and harden. We’re meant to feel and be present for grief.

“It is a holy thing to love what death can touch.” – Judah Halevior

Second Gate: The Places That Have Not Known Love. We may deem parts of ourselves unacceptable in the eyes of the world. They may be sources of shame or contempt, so we hide them from ourselves and others and deny them kindness, compassion, and warmth. Unfortunately, we cannot grieve that which lies outside our circle of worth. Weller encourages us to welcome our full range of being with interest, care, and curiosity. In so doing, we free ourselves from comparing ourselves to others and the obsession of getting things right.

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just to the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” – Diane Ackerman

Third Gate: The Sorrows of the World. Our lives are inexorably tied to the health of the planet. And yet we have lost our connection to nature and the voices of the wild. Air, water, and land have become polluted. Every day up to 150 species are lost. The planet is warming, and the protective ozone layer depletes. We need to remember our bond to the earth and grieve her losses.

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us.” – Wendell Berry

Fourth Gate: What We Expected and Did Not Receive. We are born with certain expectations for connection and engagement. We long to belong; we want to contribute. We seek welcome, a sense of worth, and purposeful existence. We feel empty in their absence. Weller encourages us to recall the “original cadence of the soul,” acknowledge these wounds, work toward healing. Running away is not the answer. We’re admonished to be courageous; facing our pain is the key to freedom.

“Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.“ – A.A. Milne

The Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief. Our forebearers’ sorrows insinuate themselves into the fabric of our lives: slavery, violence, disease, substance abuse, etc. We partake of their history; they shape our narratives and our futures.

“The long shadow of this violence persists in our psyches, and we need to address it and work with it until there is some genuine atonement for these wrongs.” – Francis Weller

We can develop skills and practices to tend to grief – by listening and being present, by giving ourselves space for silence and solitude, and by reaching out to community. As Weller says:

“Our ability to drop into this interior world and do the difficult work of metabolizing sorrow is dependent on the community that surrounds us.”

We need time to reflect and open to the experience. Weller says: “Holding grief is an act of great devotion to the soul.” When ready, we move out to share our sorrow with others, giving ourselves sustenance while strengthening bonds and belonging.

We are remade in grief – broken and reassembled. Per Carl Jung, our transformation rests upon three principles: insight (a new ways of seeing), endurance (keeping insights in front of us), and action (new gestures in the world). When we embrace these truths, we have the opportunity to come out the other side with emotional closure and wisdom born of darkness. At the end of the day:

“Don’t let sorrow drag us back into history. We are freed to love this life, and when we are asked finally to release it, we can let it go.”

In my last post, I wrote about the 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. If you’ve been on the receiving end of difficult news or supported family members, friends, or acquaintances as they process troubling circumstances, I imagine that you’ve had some experience with the process. It’s hard to know what to do or say to ease another person’s suffering.

For those of us who desire to be a comforting presence for others, Dr. Robert Buchman offers sage advice in his book, I Don’t Know What To Say. In short, simply providing space for letting your companion talk about his or her distress can help relieve it. You don’t have to have any answers or solutions. Being an attentive listener can be a healing balm.

A few practical tips for conversation:

1. Choose the right time and place. Privacy fosters openness as does freedom to allow the conversation to take its time. Be willing and able to give this time your full attention.
2. Provide an invitation to converse. Honor your friend’s request if he or she is not up to it. Be open and attentive if the time is right. Encourage disclosure with your body language (e.g., open stance, warm facial expression, eye contact) and your words (“Yes,” “I see”).
3. Be a stellar listener. Follow the path they set. Don’t think about what you might say next; don’t interrupt. As appropriate, repeat what you heard and ask clarifying questions. “Can you help me understand what you mean?” “Could you describe how that feels?” Expect repetition.
4. Avoid the temptation to provide answers or solutions, even when asked a direct question. Use that inquiry as an opportunity to help your friend think more deeply about the matter. As a case in point, folks regularly asked me if I thought there was life after death when I served as a hospital chaplain. The conversations were always much more interesting when I asked patients what they thought about it.
5. Don’t rush to fill silence (even if it makes you feel uncomfortable). Heavy emotional content takes time to process, and the words to capture the feelings may come slowly. Just be present and loving.
6. Encourage reminiscence. Memories can be a source of comfort as a way to find meaning in one’s life.
7. Respond to humor. It provides relief from intense feelings.
8. Be aware of “your stuff.” Difficult conversations can trigger our own reactivity. It may bring up our own pain, discomfort, fear, uncertainty, doubt, anger, etc. We may not be able to control our feelings, but we can notice them as they arise so that they don’t overtake us.

At the end of the day, it’s not about what you do or say; it’s about how well you connect. The more you try to understand your friend’s feelings, the more support you are giving. To that end, try to stay close enough that you provide an empathic response while keeping sufficient distance to avoid losing yourself in the heat of emotion.

A week ago, the ninety-something-year-old father of a good friend passed peacefully in his sleep. Four days later, the ninety-something-year old mother of another good friend left this world in the ER of a local hospital. Another friend’s father is on the cusp of hospice care. It’s my generation’s turn to bid good-bye.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross provides really useful insights in her seminal book entitled On Death and Dying: What The Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Families. In a nutshell, patients consistently said that empathy from their loved ones proved immeasurably helpful when overcoming the shock of an unfavorable prognosis. They also wanted partners who’d walk hand-in-hand with them through their treatment and, in time, their passing.

Kübler-Ross teaches us to be mindful of the different stages of grief. They are:

• Denial: Patients tend to think bad things happen to “the other guy.” Denial helps buffer the shock of the bad news while they muster the resources to face it.
• Anger: It’s perfectly normal to shake one’s fist at the heavens and shout, “Why me?” Yet it’s disconcerting for the family and caregivers whose own anxiety seeks to quell the disturbance. Providing space to allow that anger to release helps patients come to terms with reality and deal with it.
• Bargaining: This stage reflects a desire to postpone the inevitable. “If I do X, Y, and Z, can I get better, or at least give myself more time with loved ones?” It fosters hope that we might be able to take control of the situation.
• Depression: When the finality of one’s circumstances settles in, a deep sadness can overwhelm even the most optimistic of souls. Caregivers and family members may give in to their own discomfort and try to cheer the patient up. Yet that approach tends to fall on deaf ears. A compassionate response may involve simply “sitting in the mud” with your friend or loved one and being present.
• Acceptance: Given enough time and the right kind of support, patients can accept their fates without feeling angry or sinking into depression. It’s not a happy stage, per se. But it’s one in which there might be peace.

Folks generally don’t process these stages in a linear fashion. One can bounce around between denial, anger, bargaining, and depression for quite awhile before (hopefully) finding acceptance. And just as patients undergo this process, so, too, do their loved ones.

I lost my beloved father 3 years ago this week. He was ill for many years and spent his final months in a skilled nursing facility. I thought I’d fully processed my grief until I happened upon Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. It describes her life during the first 12 months after her husband’s sudden death. Her “magical thinking” revolved around denial of the finality of his passing and persistent consideration of what the two of them had been doing together one year prior. I found myself weeping. It tapped the unexpended reservoir of my own grief.

In the wake of those emotions, I wrote the following poem.

When the Light Went Out

I did not have a Year of Magical Thinking
when my father died.
I was not shaken to the core
when Death came.
I did not expect my father to return.

Death had been an unwelcome companion for years,
Robbing my father of mobility,
Denying him simple pleasures,
Taking his very breath away
All the while gnawing on his fragile frame.

I prayed for the battle to end.
I was there when he claimed a final wisp of air.

Yet all these months later,
I still weep and mourn the loss.

I miss the craftsman who forged my beginning
and had unwavering belief in my future.

I miss the engaging conversations,
The irritatingly wry sense of humor,
The 1000 watt smile,
And the gentle glow of silent affection.

On February 2, 2016, my father died
And the light went out
in that corner of my world.