Rituals for Grieving the Life of Someone You’ve Never Met

Grief.

An emotion that weaves itself in and out of our lives, courses through our bodies in a range of intensities.

A part of the human condition.

Unfortunately, it’s also terribly misunderstood, dismissed, ignored, pushed down, and even unfairly considered a medical problem (aka pathologized).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a mass death event, the diagnosis of ‘prolonged grief disorder’ was added to the diagnosis book (aka the DSM) required of mental health professional who accept insurances to see clients for those who experience “intense and persistent grief that lasts for more than a year”. There is much to unpack here for that, but I want to bring that into our awareness to show that there isn’t the most compassionate and human-centered attitude toward grief always. There appears to be rules to follow.

Besides a length of time for grief, there also seems to be rules related to who can grieve. Where this shows up a lot is when a public figure passes away - from celebrities to clergy to politicians to content creators.

There are think pieces and judgements made, often online, towards those who are grieving someone they’ve never met.

As though the rules of grief are that you must have met that person or known them well.

There’s space here at The Orchard for grief of all shapes and sizes and without rules.

There’s space to grieve the loss of an actress you loved, a pope you were proud of, a character in a book series you can’t believe died, a furry friend, a teacher whose classroom felt like a safe space that you haven’t seen since you left your hometown, a singer whose songs were a soundtrack to your coming-of-age who was in a tragic accent, a friend of a friend who you met once, an influencer you’ve followed since their channel first started, and so forth.

Even if we are not working together, I believe there is an importance to being able to feel through your grief and so I have listed a few grief rituals that may support you in grieving someone you’ve never met.

Ritual one: Write, draw, speak, create to them. Tell them about what they mean to you, how they’ve impacted your life, your personality, your memories, your development as a person. Tell them about how you’re feeling when you think about revisiting what they’ve left earthside. Explore what it means to you that there won’t be another video or speech or written word from them. Cry, scream, create, sing - whatever comes to you. This could happen all at once, in a dedicated space and time, or it may happen over the course of days, as you live through remembering.

Ritual two: Create a collection of speeches, videos, songs, interviews, books, photos, articles, podcast episodes - any form of media that connected you to them. This could be a digital archive, it could be a scrapbook or journal, it could be creating a website that other people could visit too, it could be making a playlist for yourself, or curating items that remind you of them that you have (old tour bracelets, movie tickets, fan art, excerpts of their words) into a memorial or an altar of sorts (I know there are lots of connotations with this word so please engage with it thoughtfully for what it means to you). This can be revisited over and over in the moments of grief in the future and may also bring about a release of emotions in the moment.

Ritual three: Connecting with others who are grieving; making space for collective grieving. Having grief witnessed and seen can be a helpful part of the grieving journey - especially if no one in your day-to-day life might have known who this person was or if they were not connected to them in the same way. This may be gathering at a public grieving place, like a memorial area with flowers and candles and photos, or it may be logging in somewhere online together like a community forum to remember and share and process together. While there may be lots of collective grieving spaces following the news in the immediate, because of the uncomfortability with grief for many people, there may be less and less as time passes. This does not mean you need to stop grieving or stop grieving in public - it just means it might require you to create your own spaces for collective grieving or it might take staying connected to a few folks from the collective grieving spaces to come back together whenever might be helpful. It’s beautiful and important to have community in grief, and it’s okay if that community isn’t in your home, your friend group, or in your hometown.

Ritual four: An anniversary activity. What is something this person shared publicly that they loved? A favorite food, drink, dessert, book, song, movie, hobby, etc? On the anniversary of their passing, you can honor them by making / baking / watching / creating / listening to whatever their favorite was. You can continue to stay connected as time passes, because grief doesn’t have a timeline. You may also want to revisit something of theirs such as a video, song, speech, writing, or artwork on this day.

You are allowed to be meaningfully impacted by someone who means a lot to you. Whether you met them or not.

So go on and grieve - it’s incredibly human of you.

Dr. S