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The Importance of Ritual in Remembering Our Loved Ones

Image source: Merlina McGovern


October was always my sister’s favorite month of the year. She loved all things spooky and autumnal well before “hoa hoa hoa season” became a meme. It was one of many, many things that we had in common. It’s funny how we spent so much of our childhood screaming about how different we were from each other, only to realize how much we were alike as we got older.


My darling sister passed away thirteen years ago. Even though it has been more than a decade, I still think about her every single day. This past Sunday, my UU church had an “All Souls” service. We were asked to bring pictures and other items that reminded us of our loved ones who had passed on. During the service, we brought our items (I brought a lovely picture of my sister) to the church altar. The reverend solemnly walked around the alter, speaking words of love and compassion as she blessed them. She reminded us of the power of grieving in community and our ability to turn unbearable grief into bearable sorrow.


As I sat in my seat, tears streaming down my face, I closed my eyes for a bit and listened to the sounds of the church. The sounds of other people sniffling as they too remembered their lost loved ones. The sounds of deep breathing and shuffling, a reminder of all of the people living on around me. 


The reverend continued speaking. She let us know that when our loved ones die, that relationship we had with them has also died. And it is relearning our place in the universe that can be so difficult. When a parent dies, we are no longer a child. When our sibling dies, we are no longer that loved one’s sibling. How do we work through that?


At the end of the service, I was still sad, but my unbearable grief had indeed turned into bearable sorrow. I was feeling a bit lighter as I picked my sister’s picture back up from the altar and placed it in my purse. I thought back to a recent Hidden Brain podcast episode I had listened to, “An Ancient Solution to Modern Problems,” which was all about rituals.


For all of the milestones in our lives (birth, marriage, death), we have elaborate rituals that surround them; these rituals help us with these major life transitions. With death, the funeral, the memorial, and then the yearly all souls service at my church, these rituals all help us to anchor our lives in our community even as we feel our lives shift during these transitions. 


As I walked out of the church, I held the warm memory of my sister deep in my heart, stronger than it had been for a while. It was then that I realized how powerful these rituals with our community are, how they allow us to turn our loved ones who have passed away into ancestors that will stay with us even though their physical bodies are long gone.


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