The Healing Power of Ritual
After our son John Paul Raphael died, I no longer felt oriented in the world. His death ripped apart the invisible tethers that kept me grounded in space and time. I was lost in a raging abyss of grief whose limits I could not reach. I felt madness creep through my mind as my heart and spirit rebelled at being present in a world that no longer made sense.
His death was like an interstellar explosion in my heart that sent fragments of who I used to be flying into the caverns of space. I couldn’t imagine ever getting them back.
In the wake of devastating loss, the bereaved is asked to make sense of that which does not make sense. Our child is dead. The intensity of emotion is unbearable and many of us were not sure we were going to survive it. If we are going to heal in a way that leads to health and well-being, we need help handling our painful emotions.
Our culture has developed rituals that provide shape and structure to loss and facilitate surviving the early tidal wave of grief, but not usually the emptiness of the coming months and years. Almost every society has rituals related to death and dying which provide anchor points to help contain our grief, but we may also need to be intentional about creating personal rituals to carry us past the initial outpouring of public support.
Containment is an essential component to healing after a traumatic event. In the aftermath of loss, containment provides a safe place to hold intense and distressing emotion until you are steady and able to properly process it. Public grieving rituals provide containment by allowing grief to be expressed and shared through tradition, customs, liturgy, and ceremony. A community of people grieve together through prayer, song, and action. As Catholics, the formal ritual of the funeral liturgy provides comfort and hope in the face of death, but the action and connection that the ritual allows is equally healing. The Catholic mass is a pinnacle of sacred ritual in grief as a large community of people bring their voices together to lament and pray. The rituals that follow graveside are equally powerful: tossing dirt onto a coffin, laying flowers on a grave, releasing balloons or butterflies. The mostly forgotten ritual of dressing in black for a year announced to all that we were tender and sad and to please treat us with gentle care. My black garments gave me permission to be vacant, sad, crying, or withdrawn as I grieved.
Rituals give us something to hold onto in the disorientation of early grief. They provide order to the chaos of grief. Many people are afraid of the intensity of their own grief. Rituals allow us to enter safely into grief because they have a beginning, middle, and end. They invite us to enter the tender places of our broken heart while encouraging us to focus on the present moment with the confidence that there is a way out.
The intention to honor and grieve through the ritual is what makes it meaningful. It is certainly possible to just “go through the motions” but the containment of mourning rituals invites us to enter into our grief with courage and purpose and move towards healing in heart, body, soul, and spirit.
Many of us have found comfort in public, liturgical rituals but may have also cultivated some private rituals as we mourn our child. For an entire year after John Paul Raphael died, every Thursday at 10:33 am, the day and hour of his birth, I took a snapchat photo and stamped the time with the # of weeks he had been gone onto the photo. Time froze for me week after week for that day and time. I repeated it the next day at 2:43 pm, the time of his death. I scheduled my life around those times for a year. If I was driving I would pull over so I could watch the clock and get the photo at just the right time. This gave me something to hold on to when I thought I was falling apart. It felt meaningful to mark the time I was surviving when he was not able to.
We have a ritual when we go to visit his grave, although it has simplified in the past 5 years. My husband and I both crouch to kiss his headstone and always say the same prayer together before we go. Again, something to hold on to when our baby wasn’t here.
Many people use candles, photographs, flowers, or special jewelry or clothing to help them remember their child. These are also rituals. My husband wore a single shirt during John Paul Raphael’s 28 hours and 10 minutes of life. He then wore that shirt every Thursday for several years until it started to fall apart – his own private ritual to connect with his grief and remember our son.
As we move through our grief, rituals may come and go. Remember – grief rituals are here to bring your healing and comfort, not shame and blame. If you started a ritual and find you can’t continue it or it is no longer meaningful, give yourself permission to stop. You still love your child. You are not letting anyone down. But you may also find that you would like to connect more intentionally with your child and with your love for them and adding a personal ritual could help.
Whatever you choose to do or not do, personal and public rituals in grief are an essential component of healing. They establish rhythm, connection, purpose, and empowerment – four things that are sorely missing after a traumatic loss. We are praying for you as you mourn and here to support you in your grief.
~What rituals or traditions have helped you contain your grief while holding on to your child?
~What rituals do you have for your child’s birthday or the day he/she died? What do you love about your rituals or what would you like to change?
~What new rituals could help you continue to process your grief? Here are a few additional ideas that may interest you.
Light a candle when you are feeling particularly sad. Let it burn while you cry it out and then blow it out.
Pick a time each day to check in with your grief and intentionally remember your child. Maybe at sunset or at sunrise, maybe during your morning coffee or dessert.
Gift something special that belonged to your child to someone who loved them with a special note
Create a small altar in your home with items you think your child would love – a flower, a rock, a special toy…
Create a playlist of songs that inspire you to connect with your child or release your grief. Plan special times to enter into the music and grieve.
Find an analog clock and stop the time to the hour of your child’s death. Keep it in your home in a place you can see it and remember.*
Wear something special that belonged to your child.
Create a photo collage of one of your child’s favorite places at different times of day and different seasons.
*This comes from an old Irish ritual that time stalls at the minute a loved one dies. Life and death co-exist in this liminal space. There is no before and after. Take comfort in being outside of time.
