Thoughts on grief and ritual
I’m not sure where to start this story. This story about grief and the necessity for ritual. Because where do you begin to give words to something that is so profound, unique and seemingly impossible to grasp?
And yet, I feel compelled to. Because I know that in order to bring people to this work, to grief work, and to bring the transformational power it holds to those who need it, we need to share about it. Talk about it. So allow me to try.
Finding Home, within and without
We’ve lived in my parental home for almost a year now. In my dad’s house, as I still think of it. It’s not his anymore —dad is gone, as is mum—, but his fingerprints are still all over it: in the floors he laid, the walls he painted, the trees he planted. But his half-empty coffee cup no longer sits on the table, his reading glasses don’t lay scattered throughout the house, and his shoes no longer stand by the door, ready to support him on another 20km walk. It might be our house, but it still feels like his home.
Echoes Of The Life That Was
Sat in a grand concert hall, mesmerised by the magical sounds rising up from the Ukrainian orchestra in front of me, I am brought back to some of my teenage years when, for a few hours every week, I would occupy one of those orchestral chairs.
I’ve found myself increasingly reflecting on the rich childhood my parents created for me.
The Quiet Rebellion of Grief
It’s been over six months since my dad passed. I’ve been putting off the final piles of paperwork that need doing. I’m playing catch-up, now, though play has little place in it. I can’t begin to guesstimate the amount of hours I have spent poring over bank statements and tax papers rather than photos and memories. Speaking to customer service employees instead of friends. Tending to formalities rather than my grief.
Grief work is slow work
I often wonder how we can carve out space to grieve in this fast paced, solution-oriented world. I can’t help but feel that grief defies the rapid rhythms of modern society. Grief is not something we fix, or are at some point done with. It’s not something we can work our way past with a positive mindset and can-do attitude. If anything, grief requires us to pause, to create space to be present with our inner world. This, in itself, feels like a radical act—an act of reclaiming our humanity from a culture that often prizes moving on over sitting with sorrow.
On grief, hiding and healing
When my dad died, I went into hiding. I barely had contact with the world outside: outside of the walls of our house, outside of our little family unit, outside of the boundaries drawn by my skin. The world became a foreign and intolerable place of little appeal.
‘But you always speak about how we were never meant to grieve alone, how community and connection is paramount in grief.’ I do. And I stand by that. But..