Mourning Rituals

How To Grieve and Heal

By Elicia Brown

Even today, I can still hear those awful thuds. Even today, I am awed that so much power can be packed into one little ritual. One by one, relatives and friends took their turns, shoveling the damp earth over my grandmother's casket. Sweaty and solemn, their funeral outfits ruffled by the activity, they would continue for a long, long while. As is customary in Judaism, the cemetery staff would barely lift a finger. As is customary for a Jewish mourner, I felt comforted, sheltered and cared for by my community.

What follows are nine coping strategies inspired by Jewish mourning traditions. You needn't be Jewish to draw from this wisdom.

The Burial: Labor Of Love

A Jewish burial, performed as soon as possible after death, requires the labor of loved ones. In the case of my grandmother, I recall watching my Aunt Fonda, her face flush with exercise, returning again and again to the shovel, showering earth on the grave site of her 92-year-old mother, a formerly empty space adjacent to her father's upright stone.

The activity, my aunt recounted later, provided a physical release for pent-up energy. But as I reflect on this ritual, I find even greater wisdom: It alleviated the mourners of guilt, allowing them to continue to care for my grandmother. It gave us closure; a thud of finality. As much as we felt my grandmother's presence among us, her body lay below the growing mound of earth. It flooded a sad, rainy graveyard with love.

Community Check-up

Overcome with anger and sadness, some mourners struggle to leave the house, even to don an article of fresh clothing. But if someone expects you to get out of bed, if someone anticipates your presence, you might make that extra effort.

Jewish tradition mandates that those mourning a close relative recite the Kaddish prayer three times every day for the first 30 days. A bereaved child should continue for the first 11 months. What this means from a practical perspective is that the mourner stands up in a community of friends and acknowledges one's loss, quietly but publicly. A support group might serve a similar function.

"For a mourner who might otherwise sit home, alone, this social interaction is powerful and critical," says Rabbi Karen Medwed Reiss, who lost her first husband.

Sometimes the bereaved individual even finds a "mourning buddy," someone reciting Kaddish at the same time, confronting the same complex emotions. And Kaddish serves yet another purpose: diminishing guilt. The mandated prayers force bereaved children to play an active role in synagogue for almost a year on behalf of their parents — in effect, forcing them to honor their parents in death, as in life.