People have always marked loss with ritual: funerals, wakes, prayers, flowers, candles. Most cultures and faiths have their own, and they’ve lasted for a reason. When someone dies, there’s nothing we can do to change what’s happened, and a ritual gives us something we can do.
The funeral is usually the biggest ritual, but it’s over quickly. For many people, the rituals that matter most are the smaller ones that come afterwards: a visit to the grave on a Sunday, a candle on their birthday, a toast to them at Christmas.
What counts as a ritual
A grief ritual is anything you do, more than once, to remember someone. It can be religious or not. It can be a family tradition or something you start yourself, and it doesn’t need to mean anything to anyone else.
Some examples:
- lighting a candle on their birthday or the anniversary of their death
- cooking their favourite meal, or going back to a place they loved
- visiting their grave, or the place their ashes were scattered
- listening to a song that reminds you of them
- writing them a letter
- wearing something of theirs on a special day
- giving to a charity that mattered to them
Some rituals are shared with family. Others are private, and you may never tell anyone about them. Both are fine.
Why they can help
Rituals don’t work the same way for everyone, but a few reasons come up again and again.
They give grief a place. Grief can turn up without warning, in the supermarket or halfway through a meeting. Setting time aside on a particular day won’t stop that. It can make grief feel a little less like it’s in charge.
They make you feel less helpless. Losing someone can leave you feeling there’s nothing you can do. A ritual is something you can do, whenever you choose.
They keep a connection going. People used to talk mainly about “letting go” after a death. Many grief experts now recognise that staying connected to the person who died, through memories, habits and traditions, is a normal and often healthy part of grieving. Rituals are one way of doing that.
They show it still matters. After the first few weeks, people often stop mentioning the person who died. A shared ritual, like raising a glass at a family meal, says out loud that they haven’t been forgotten.
Finding rituals that work for you
There’s no right ritual. If something you’ve always done starts to feel empty, it’s fine to change it or stop. If you’d like to start something new, keep it small. Rituals that are easy to repeat tend to last longer than ones that take a lot of planning.
It also helps to think ahead to the days you’ll find hardest. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, and Mother’s or Father’s Day can all be difficult. Deciding in advance how you’ll mark them can take away a little of the dread.
When there’s nowhere to visit
Not everyone has a grave nearby. The person may be buried far away, their ashes may be scattered somewhere hard to reach, or there may be no physical place at all. Online memorials can help here, because you can visit them from anywhere, at any time.
On The Bridge of Lights, you can light a permanent candle with their name, their years and a short message. You’ll be emailed a candle number so you can find their light again whenever you want. That could be every birthday, every anniversary, or just on a hard day. Some people find that going back to the same candle becomes a small ritual of its own.
Small, and repeated
Rituals don’t take grief away, and they aren’t meant to. But small things, repeated over time, can make it a little easier to carry, and help keep the person you’ve lost part of your life.