Rituals, Loss & Healing: Remembering Mom Part 2.

It’s now been almost a month since I got the call that mom had died and tomorrow it will be three weeks since her celebration of life and burial. In this last month I continue to be overwhelmed by the support I have received. Cards, notes, flowers along with lunches, cups of coffee/tea, and beers with others have all been part of my healing process. This has served as a powerful reminder that healing requires community, yes some of the work and processing has to be done alone, but that is never enough by itself. There is something powerful that happens when people gather in community to grieve, share their loss, and heal together. This is why the 12 Step tradition can be so effective in helping people overcome addiction, yet there are other support groups like Grief Share and Divorce Care that tap into this same healing power. If you are stuck in your grief, loss, addiction, or other type of pain I strongly encourage you to see counseling and a support group to help you process and heal your pain. As Richard Rohr warns, “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us:”1

For this post I want to focus on the healing power of rituals and the role that rituals played in the healing process of my family and me after the loss of mom. In looking up the word ritual I found two of the handful of possible definitions helpful; “verb: done in accordance with social custom or normal protocol and noun: a ceremonial act or action.”2 Every society, culture, organization, and even family establishes certain rituals or protocols whether they are aware of them or not. Some are more formal and set and others are less formal and develop more organically.

One of my families’ rituals is gather around the fire place that is on the side of the house that was where my grandparents and then mom from the time she moved out to take care of her own mom about 8 years ago. As best I can remember the ritual of gathering around the fire pit started a year or two before my grandad died in 1996, so that ritual has been around for a while and has certainly developed more organically. That ritual includes hot dogs and smores and around the 4th of July and New Year’s Eve there is a firework display in the dirt road next to the house (yes it is a small town.) But, most importantly the Lueders fire pit ritual is the place where the family gathers to tell stories, catch up on how each other is doing all while being loved and accepted for who we are. A place to put aside our differences and just be a family. No matter how hot or cold it might be, heck even a little rain does not deter us from the firepit. So, the night before and the night of my mom’s service and burial we engaged in the family ritual. Food and drink were plenty, the logs kept piling on the fire, and stories were told as we grieved our loss together. I could even imagine mom smiling from her spot on the nearby swing taking in all in. It’s only been a little over two years since grandma died, so we were really grieving two losses, and this was the first time the majority of the extended family was back together. This all brought a since of normalcy to our loss as the loss of my mom and grandma did not stop the family from continuing this ritual, if anything in only strengthened our desire to continue it. So often I have seen families in conflict and turmoil over the loss of a loved one, which only adds to the grief and sorrow. I am blessed to have a family that came together in support of each other during that time.

As a family we also gathered for the more formal rituals of service and burial. I was encouraged early in the week to not be a pastor just be a son/dad/brother/etc. that week. That was a huge blessing that enabled me to better focus my energies. As my sister and I met with the funeral home and others, the plans for these rituals that would occur on Saturday came together rather smoothly and easily, which again was a huge blessing. Trinity the Lutheran church in Albany, the town about 20 miles west of the house, was gracious to allow us to use their church and fellowship hall for the celebration of life and reception. This allowed friends and family to more easily attend as they were able. Friends and extended family stepped up and helped with the various details of the service and reception so that the immediate family could just grieve and celebrate the life of their mom, gran, sister, and aunt. I was truly honored by the number of people that drove out, some over two hours from the DFW area to show their support. We were even able to livestream the service for those that were not able to attend, including my aunt who was in hospital in Houston and unable to attend. It was a great celebration of life as we shared pictures, and a slide show put together by her granddaughters. After the service the immediate family gathered at Clear Fork Cemetery. Burial rituals are very great in societies and cultures. Today, many choose to be cremated and not buried at all, but instead their ashes are spread out or kept by family members. Even though mom was cremated we wanted to have her buried next to her parents, especially her mom that she spent so much of her last year’s taking care of. The burial spot next to her mom and dad belonged to her brother and he gladly offered to us to use. Since we already had her cremains, we were able to do the burial without the assistance of the funeral director. Which means that we were able to dig our own hole. We stood together in a circle around the grave and again took turns sharing our stories about mom in the mist of both tears and laughter. Then we participated in what is actually a pretty old ritual. Each family member took a turn or two shoveling from the pile to fill the grave. That was such a powerful moment as each of us got to say goodbye.

The next day was Sunday, and the family slowly began the process of cleaning up and heading their separate ways home. We cleared out mom’s storage unit and started going through her things. It’s going to take a while to finish that process and not doubt several more trips out west and evenings around the fire pit. After all the family left town, though some still live in the same town, I stopped by the little gas station on my way home. The owners had attended mom’s service the day before and shared their own stories of her coming in a just chatting with them. They commented on how beautiful the church and the service were. The church was adorned in with several bouquets of flowers that had been sent in her memory. I left them a few copies of the service bulletin which they put out for others to take. As I left the store thanking them for their hospitality to mom, it hit me that I was not ready to leave. So much of my own life in the last eight years and especially the last two had been spent going out to check on grandma and mom and then just mom. I needed an evening and morning alone, by the fireplace of course, to process this new normal and reality for my life. A stray dog, there are no shortage in town, who had become by companion for the week joined me off and on. My family in town brought me food and came by to chat bit. Mostly just I sat there alone, hugging my cactus, embracing the ugly, leaning into the sadness, and creating the space that I often avoid to just slow down and be. A big part of my own “hug your cactus” journey has been to acknowledge my own tendency to avoid things that are painful and uncomfortable or move on from them as quickly as possible. So, this time alone to process pain and sadness felt like real personal progress, and yes it sucked :). The next morning after a walk and a cup of coffee, I was finally ready to leave and say goodbye, knowing that my trips out west would never quite be the same. Yet also being very grateful for the family, friends, and rituals that helped me through that week.

  1. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/transforming-pain-2018-10-17/#:~:text=If%20we%20do%20not%20transform,common%20storyline%20of%20human%20history. ↩︎
  2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ritual ↩︎

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