We lost my maternal grandmother three days before her 87th birthday, after a bad car accident on Highway 16 in Jackson, Georgia.
I have never known grief like this. The strange coincidence was that my grandfather died the same way, in a bad car accident. His death happened right before I was born, while I was in utero. My mother’s comment was “at least when my dad died I had something to take care of, a baby to nurse.”
Western society has so little infrastructure for grief, so few rituals. I’ve often wished in the past 5 days that I practiced Judaism, or that I lived in some other era. To sit shiva for a deceased person is as much a ritual to to support the living as it is to honor the dead. I need someone to bring me food. I need someone to sit with me. I need lots of someones coming and going to keep watch over me and my family, to make sure we are still functioning.
And I need stories. The handful of years before my grandmother’s death were richer with stories than the many before them. She was raised in Louisiana right after the Depression; it was a difficult childhood. Her stories of a life lived mostly in poverty always struck me in a tender place. The fact that she was even sharing them - such a private person she was - was even more tender.
My grandmother was beloved of her community. She showed up faithfully to her community of faith, and it was clear during my few interactions there that she was dearly loved. In no uncertain terms, she directed my uncle to forego a service. We will not be having a funeral or memorial service, and the loss of the communal grief ritual is causing me deep sorrow. I am grieving the opportunity to hear the stories about “Miss Betty” that many would surely share.
Without ritual, we are left to our devices. My uncle chooses to light a candle in the Catholic church where he is in Paris, I listen to Sanskrit chanting, I share her photos on Instagram. We will plant a tree. My mother sorts through photos and shares stories about their sweet daily intimacies, living on the lake and watching the beautiful sunsets. Mom’s daily life is forever altered, the presence of her one remaining parent had been a comfort to her during the years my grandmother lived with them.
How else will we honor her? Social media is not enough, and the comments there scant comfort compared to the thousands of hugs and stories I wish I could receive. We are a quiet, private family. I a quiet, private person. But I do wish for the communal gathering, the tears flowing or not, a knock on the door and yet another casserole to fill the refrigerator.
We need a return to communal ritual, guidance on how to hold space. Together with a friend who has suffered a loss recently, we bemoan the lack of functional grief rituals for every loss (her words). She wants an armband, I would be satisfied with Sharpie marks on my forehead, Something to say, as she puts it - “a chunk has been ripped out of my life and the pieces that are left don’t know how to function together.”
We need the coming over and visiting. It’s a way of saying “you might not see much point in going on right now, but I want you to live.” In this way our friends become the physical keepers of our life for a while.
Casseroles and mourning clothing, wailing and shiva-ing and holding a wake - these are all functional markers of the grief that I carry so awkwardly. I desperately wish for a few weeks of falling apart but instead continue to go to work and operate in this mindless capitalism. I need to be held together by hugs and simple foods. I need someone to remind me to drink water. I need someone to listen to my ramblings. I need my community.
We are so convinced that consumerist self-care will soothe us, but where is communal care? Where might we fill in the gaps in our aching, show up for one another with a casserole and a hug, and sit together in the terrible deconstruction of life that happens when a loved one leaves us?