Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Make Time to Mourn

Though the pandemic has posed obstacles to funerals, delaying memorial services has also opened up unexpected opportunities for reflection and creativity.

Credit...Rose Wong

After the death of a loved one, the grief of each survivor is often different — but the ritual of holding a funeral is shared.

“One of the big things that a memorial service does is it’s a collective acknowledgment,” said Megan Devine, a therapist specializing in grief and the author of the book “It’s OK That You’re Not OK.” “Acknowledgment really is one of the only medicines we have for grief.”

Yet because of social-distancing mandates and prohibitions on large-group gatherings, those group traditions have been upended these past 15 months. Instead, the families and communities surrounding those who have died have had to come up with new and creative ways to celebrate lives lost.

Some have opted to hold memorial services over Zoom, where they observe religious rites like sitting shiva or reciting the janazah prayer, or having virtual brunches or dance parties. Others have decided to postpone, holding a larger, in-person memorial months or even a year following a loved one’s death. Now, as restrictions are lifted and vaccinations become more widespread, some funeral directors are beginning to have conversations about services that had previously been delayed.

The postponements and some lingering constraints can take an emotional toll on families who feel left in limbo, but at the same time, they may also provide an opportunity to reframe the roles funeral rituals play.

“There’s that belief, which is a myth, that you get closure and then you go back to life really quickly,” Ms. Devine said. “Memorials and funerals are not the end of the grieving process. They’re part of the beginning.”

Here are some ways individuals and experts are thinking about holding memorial services after a delay.

The raw grief that immediately follows a death can make it challenging to come up with a clear plan for a service. “I hear from a lot of people who were like, the funeral was a blur to me,” Ms. Devine said. As time passes, you may be better equipped to map out how you’d like to memorialize a loved one, and the role a service will play in your grieving.

“You’re able to give some real thought to, ‘What does this service need to look like to honor and celebrate that life? What does my participation need to look like?’” said Bryant Hightower, president of the National Funeral Directors Association. “You begin to understand your needs a little more than you would have initially.” Think about the tone and substance of your program and eulogies, and talk openly with other family members and friends about your plans.

Or perhaps what’s needed is more depth. In February of last year, Christina Mevs’s uncle, a professor and activist, died suddenly from complications of AIDS. It wasn’t until the end of last month, some 14 months later, that Ms. Mevs, 32, an advertising strategist, and her family held an in-person service for her uncle, as well as for her grandfather and aunt who had recently died of Covid-19, in their hometown Niagara Falls, N.Y.

During the intervening period, she gathered a wealth of information about her uncle’s past, particularly his work with the AIDS advocacy group Act Up. She read interviews and news articles, watched archival videos and interviewed his friends and students — research that ended up playing a central role in how she wanted to eulogize him. “I was really able to glean so many new insights for how he tirelessly worked for the AIDS community,” she said.

Earlier this year, Janice Marie Johnson, a director of ministries and faith development for the Unitarian Universalist Association, began planning a large online memorial service for her twin sister, Hope, who died of lung and heart disease at the end of November. She hoped for it to take place on March 28 — Palm Sunday, a day Hope had loved. But sifting through old photos and mementos, alone, at the beginning of this year “became too difficult, too painful,” Dr. Johnson said. She, her daughter and her niece decided to delay the memorial service until the summer, and instead, at the end of March, they gathered in Baltimore to look at photos, talk and raise a toast to Hope. In the meantime, Dr. Johnson has also been collecting her thoughts in a journal.

“Had the service been earlier, I wouldn’t have remembered some of the nicknames, some of the twin language, so many memories that I’m taking the time to explore,” Dr. Johnson said.

Consider selecting a day that means something to you or your loved one. But as restrictions are lifted and demand increases for officiants and venues, it may get more challenging to book, so don’t sweat the date too much. And remember there’s no such thing as preparing too far in advance, according to Sarah Chavez, the executive director of the Order of the Good Death, an organization that provides education and resources about death. She likened planning a memorial service to other major life events: a birthday, childbirth, wedding or new job.

Because so many funeral traditions involve the body — bathing, dressing and burying — it can be hard to envision what a service might look like in its absence. If a burial has already happened, Ms. Chavez recommended creating another centerpiece to structure a ceremony around. “It could be really helpful to create a focal point as a substitute for the body,” she said.

This might mean erecting an altar with photos and candles. Or, set aside a garden plot where friends and family can plant and tend to flora in a person’s memory. Memorials can also accompany the unveiling of a headstone or the scattering or burying of ashes. Though Dr. Johnson was unable to return her sister’s body to Jamaica — during the pandemic, repatriating the bodies of the deceased has proved difficult — she plans to bury Hope’s locs, which were cut off after her death according to tradition observed by her Jamaican and Ethiopian family, at their family plot in Kingston in June.

You may rethink the role an officiant or celebrant would usually play in a service, and instead have a friend or family member lead. Don’t hesitate to deputize friends and family to help plan. (Ms. Devine suggested assigning roles to individuals who said to reach out if you need anything.) Funeral homes and cemeteries might also no longer be obvious venues for memorial services occurring several months or a year after a death. Ms. Devine heard from individuals who were planning to embark on memorial road trips or hikes or to scatter ashes in a meaningful location or to visit the place where a loved one died; members of Ms. Chavez’s Latinx community often turn to car cruises. Or maybe it’s a sports field or park, outdoor spaces that have the advantage of permitting social distancing.

“It’s not that these things weren’t options before,” Ms. Devine said, “but I think being freed of the time constraint loosens something up in the creative mind about, ‘What do we really want?’”

Many families who delay funeral services don’t end up holding them at all, Mr. Hightower observed. Often, this is because of concern that holding a service later on would refresh the grief they’d started to come to terms with. It doesn’t have to: “Take where you are today and let that dictate what the service needs to look like,” Mr. Hightower recommended. “Don’t take me back to ground zero of my loss.”

Sarah Wagner, a professor of anthropology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Tariq Adely, a Ph.D. student in the department of anthropology, are two members of a team researching how the pandemic has affected mourning rituals. Some individuals take comfort from the expected funeral rites that immediately follow a death, which offer a sense of collective belonging, and their absence has been confusing and challenging, Mr. Adely said.

“We saw creative and innovative ways but also underlying that, for the majority of folks, there’s a feeling that it’s been partial, it’s been constrained,” Dr. Wagner said.

Bill Keveney, a journalist in Los Angeles who recently published a story about the funeral he held for his brother Tom seven months after his death, echoed this. “Having it withheld for so long, I have a greater appreciation for these rituals,” Mr. Keveney said. “There’s nothing worse than the actual loss of the person. But you just feel you could be doing more.”

Even under non-pandemic circumstances, life doesn’t simply return to normal after a funeral or memorial service; commemorating a life lost is always an individual process — and an ongoing one. In addition to holding a service, Mr. Keveney and his sister have also visited locations dotted along the Connecticut coast that his brother, an avid fisherman, had loved. “I look forward to doing more of that,” he said. “If someone was important enough to you in your life, you’re always going to miss them. But you hold onto that because it matters that they’re not there anymore.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section D, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Make Time to Mourn. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT