How to remember to grieve?

December 14, 2023 10:29 AM

My aunt died about a month ago at a ripe old age after a long chronic illness. I just now caught myself before I wrote her a Christmas card. She didn't want a funeral and I couldn't visit her in the hospice just before she died due to Covid. It just feels like she's... missing.

When the treatment stopped working and they arranged for her to move into hospice care, she decided not to have a funeral. She wanted instead to have some type of pre-death party at her golf club, but she didn't make it to the party date.

I've visited my cousins since, when they were staying at her house to sort out some of her belongings after she died, but again it just felt like she'd stepped out for five minutes.

She was a big part of my childhood but as an adult we rarely saw each other. During Covid, I started calling her regularly to check in and I'm glad we'd been getting on better in recent years.

I doubt I will keep in close contact with either of my cousins as one is very difficult to be around due to his extreme politics and the other prefers not to engage with family if at all possible.

Does anyone have a good non-spiritual, not too woo ritual or practice that I can use to somehow internalise that she is departed?

She was a very sporty, unsentimental person whose spirituality was mainly cheese and white wine. Conceptually I'd like to honour that somehow as part of the ritual. As mementos, I have a few photos and a small animal ornament.

posted by spranks to Human Relations (14 answers total)

I'm a writer, so when I lost someone close to me, I wrote a poem for them. That didn't feel like enough, so I copied the poem out by hand in pretty handwriting with a calligraphy marker on some expensive, creamy paper. Even that didn't feel like enough so I drew a little flower-and-vines pattern around the edge of the paper. That felt like enough.

Then I bought a frame for it, thinking I'd hang it up on some wall, but till today no wall has felt quite right. If my lost person had a grave I'd probably place it at the graveside, but they don't, so the poem in its frame lives in my drawer. That feels fine. Almost just right.

I don't have a ritual because I see the poem every time I open the drawer, and that feels like enough. But you could have a ritual if you wanted. Sit in the sun for a few minutes, or light a candle, or drink some wine to her favorite music every so often. But most important: keep in touch with your cousins!
posted by MiraK at 10:35 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

A photo of her with a candle underneath you light regularly while enjoying wine and cheese would be lovely. I'd like to be remembered that way, enjoying good food and fun!
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:36 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]

(You can keep in touch with your cousins in small and manageable ways - like exchanging christmas cards or doing a chat group talking about your aunt on her birthday. You can also remember your aunt through your connection with other, less difficult members of the family. I do think one of the loveliest ways to honor someone's memory is to keep our connections to their living relatives alive.)
posted by MiraK at 10:43 AM on December 14, 2023

I'm so sorry for your loss. May her memory be for a blessing. What about writing an obituary for her, then reading it aloud to a small group of your living loved ones while sharing white wine and cheese? If you'd rather not write an obituary, then how about reading some poems aloud?
posted by wicked_sassy at 11:04 AM on December 14, 2023

Best answer: I'm sorry you lost your aunt. It's totally normal for it to not feel totally real this early on--there really is a process here--and it's so wise of you to be thinking of how to engage with grief proactively.

One function that funerals or memorials serve for grievers is to provide a ritual marking the reality of the loss. Without having had that in a more official form, you might consider planning something similar for yourself- hiking/biking/kayaking/whatever her sport of choice was to one of her favorite spots (or somewhere you can imagine her appreciating), breaking out the wine/cheese/candle/photo there, and saying some words to or about her. Favorite memories, expressions of gratitude, any misgivings you have if not being able to visit in hospice brings up any feelings of guilt or remorse. Bring a poem or song, if that feels right. If you don't feel comfortable speaking out loud, it's worth writing these thoughts down- some form of actually expressing externally is really valuable in processing loss.
posted by wormtales at 11:05 AM on December 14, 2023

Best answer: She was a very sporty, unsentimental person whose spirituality was mainly cheese and white wine.
Well, she sounds awesome.

In my experience, grieving is remembering to grieve. That's the job description: repeatedly remember that the person isn't here. I don't know how to make more bearable the more shocking moments of remembering. The most jarring are the ones when you've been dreaming about the person, alive in your dream, right before you wake up for the day and then have to remember to grieve again because you've remembered again that the person is dead, just as you're trying to get up and be alive, yourself: get coffee made, get dressed, brush your teeth, feed the cat, and get out of the house. Those ones can derail the day. I don't think you can do anything deliberately to lessen the shock, but it does seem to ebb over time. After a while I got to where I was grateful for those dreams, and for the tiny time of cognitive dissonance upon waking up. Yes, they're dead, now, but they were once alive, and I knew them, and just now in my dream they were alive.

My boyfriend is Chinese. We burn hell money for our dead fathers at tomb sweeping time. And last night we were eating a persimmon, although neither of us particularly likes persimmons. I said that my father had loved them, and my boyfriend said that we were eating the persimmon for him. This ritualization turned the whole lackluster experience of eating a persimmon--what is the point of them? They have nearly no flavor and zero acidity: it's just a mild, dull sweetness--a capacity to satisfy that persimmons themselves, obviously, completely lack. You could definitely remember to grieve on purpose in a ritual by enjoying some cheese and white wine. Set out the cheese and the wine for your aunt, think of your aunt, then drink the wine and eat the cheese.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:11 AM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]

Best answer: In the past I've done some major things to acknowledge and commemorate grief, like getting a tattoo and even shaving my head. But a little thing that I like is that we've made a non-religious sort of shrine space in our home, where we have photos and trinkets associated with absent loved ones, including pets. We have some little pretty doodads there, and a candle. It's nice to have a little spot where these people & animals are remembered, and I really like having it.
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:28 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

For myself, I'd get some cheese, pour a glass of wine, and go ahead and write that card. If you're not a wine and cheese person yourself, you could set out your mementos together, get some food and drink you like, light a candle, and write the card. Then you could leave the card and mementos up as an ongoing reminder for a while if that feels right to you, or take it down slowly and thoughtfully as the close to your ritual.
posted by EvaDestruction at 11:29 AM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: You'll find much wisdom about working through loss in these two links:


First this brief YouTube video...

And this...
posted by elf27 at 12:50 PM on December 14, 2023

It's actually pretty normal to still be forgetting they're gone after only a month. It takes most people longer than that to remember what year it is every January.

I agree with the others to set aside some time to have some wine and cheese and maybe write her that card, a thank-you letter for the time you had together and the impact she had on you. If you generally do Christmas decorations, maybe get an ornament that makes you think of her every year.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:54 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have a small container in which I keep letters, poems, and drawings I made when a loved one died. The act of writing is a way to say all the things I couldn’t either because I wasn’t there when they died, or because I wasn’t ready to say those things.

This act does come from a spiritual tradition, but you can make it as secular as you like.
posted by munchingzombie at 1:55 PM on December 14, 2023

When my Grandpa died, my family had a tree planted in his memory in our local park. It wasn't very expensive and came with a nice plaque with his name on it. It's been nice watching the tree grow over the years. Sometimes I just like to sit in the park by the tree and reflect on things. You could do something similar, have a tree planted for your aunt, and have a wine and cheese picnic there every year in her memory.
posted by DEiBnL13 at 8:59 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Have a glass of wine and some cheese, and write the card.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 10:25 PM on December 14, 2023

My grandpa passed in 2020 from cancer. We were not close and I think I started grieving his absence from my life many years prior to his passing.

However, from time to time I find myself remembering he existed and that we had unfinished business (or at least I did.) My muscle memory still has me buying him birthday and Grandparents' Day cards and planning what I want to write in them, even though I have nowhere to send them. There's a strange hollowness that comes with those moments, and I've come to realize it's because I never finished grieving. I just... Forgot. Didn't want to. Didn't think I needed to. I was wrong.

My go-to when I need some space in which to process things is to get some food, drive somewhere pretty, then sit in my car and talk aloud about whatever it is that's got me fussed. Since one of the few things my grandpa and I had in common was a profound love for the chocolate covered peanuts from See's Candies, I will picking some up soon and choosing a place to go so I can sit and talk to him for a bit in the privacy of my car.

Maybe something similar but with wine and cheese would suit you, too.
posted by The Adventure Begins at 7:03 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]