Jan 31, 2023 | Community, Family, Grief
By Brittiny Moore
Whether at a small church, or one that seats thousands, Black funerals – or homegoing celebrations – are expressions of mourning that honor Black life, love, and community. Homegoing celebrations are a fixture in Black communities, and elaborate and festive rituals that blend African ancestry with the Christian religion.
During the antebellum period, enslaved Africans were prohibited from performing funerals and traditional rituals, for fear that they would conspire to rebel. At the same time, enslaved Africans were responsible for preparing the body and funeral services for the deceased plantation owner’s family, according to Christian funeral traditions.
This disallowance led enslaved people to perform funeral ceremonies in “hush harbors” — hidden, sacred places where enslaved Africans could freely perform funeral rituals that fused African traditions with those of Christianity.
Today, homegoings continue to offer an environment where raw forms of Black culture can be freely exercised — through the singing of gospels and spirituals, the reading of scriptures, the adornment of T-shirts honoring the deceased, the final farewells at the close of the casket, and a feast, known as a repast, shared among the bereaved.
Although Black folks in the United States are diverse in their religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, geographic regions, and family traditions, when it comes to a homegoing service, many traditions remain consistent. These traditional practices stem from, and are deeply rooted in, African ancestry brought to America by the African people who survived the middle passage of the Atlantic slave trade.
These are five African funeral traditions reflected in homegoings today:
1. Homegoings are a community-wide affair.
Homegoing celebrations are often quite large, with family members, close friends, and even acquaintances coming from far and wide to attend services. Even distant or feuding family members are expected to put up a temporary truce to attend the homegoing and honor the life of a lost loved one. Many Black families hold services on Saturdays to allow as many people as possible to attend. In some cases, the service may be postponed to ensure everyone can be there.
The Black community historically, and still today, uses funerals to come together, show support for the bereft, share in each other’s pain, relish in the culture of their Blackness, and maintain connection to older African traditions.
It is typical for a death in Africa to bring the whole community — family, friends, fellow church goers, and strangers alike — together to participate in the entire funeral process, from pre-burial ceremonies to after-funeral bereavement rituals. When a death is announced, the community at-large flocks to the bereaved family to provide holistic support to help them navigate their grief and life without their loved one.
The community aids the grieving family with their basic needs — cooking and baking, assisting with buying groceries, and other errands — providing the grieving family space to mourn. A tent is raised on the homestead of the grieving family, and here the community gathers for prayer and grief circles in the days preceding the funeral. This is a period when the community surrounds the bereaved family with love, patience, and support, and this may include various traditions and social and religious practices.
2. Home goings include a “right burial” for the deceased.
As the name implies, a homegoing is the symbolic return of the human spirit back to its heavenly home. Therefore, it’s crucial for Black families to ensure their loved ones are able to have as smooth a transition to the afterlife as possible.
Homegoing are deliberately and meticulously elaborate celebrations of the deceased’s life, including music, dancing, flashy hats, and ornate decorations. It’s typical to find flower-filled altars as backdrops for an elegantly casketed loved one, oversized T-shirts honouring the deceased, slideshows celebrating the life of the deceased, and the placement of personal belongings on or in the casket.
These traditions are rooted in the African belief that death is a continuum of existence, rather than an end. African communities participate in several traditions and rituals to ensure the “right burial” is available to their ancestors, which is said to prevent the spirit of the deceased from haunting or exerting power over the living.
These rituals begin by preparing the homestead of the bereaved family, including turning all pictures of their loved one to face the wall and smearing ashes on the windows to prevent the deceased from viewing themselves as their body is cleansed and prepared for burial. This is followed by body-removing rituals, so as to confuse the dead, who may want to find their way back to their body. These rituals include taking the body through a hole in the wall, removing the body feet-first, and taking a zig-zag path to the burial site. During burial, the deceased is dressed and buried with personal items to take with them in the afterlife.
3. A posh coffin is a hallmark of a Homegoing ritual.
Most families spare no expense for a homegoing service, commonly opting for an upscale casket for their loved one. The casket is the aspect of a homegoing where families will go all out, many deciding to spend a sizable sum of money, if possible.
Despite the hefty price tag of most funeral services, the overall cost of a homegoing is not often viewed negatively. Rather, many Black families are happy to indulge in traditions and ceremonies for a collective celebration in memory of a lost, loved family member.
African funeral ceremonies are akin to homegoing’s, in that extravagance is imperative to a “right” burial — so much so, that one business in Ghana has made something quite remarkable out of it. The group is affectionately known as “fantasy” coffin makers, crafting caskets in the shapes of animals, cars, airplanes, locomotives, and much more.
These fantasy coffins are designed to reflect the hobbies, and even jobs of the deceased, allowing loved ones to be buried in a casket that represents their passions and livelihoods. This allows surviving loved ones an even stronger connection to the personality and legacy of the deceased.
4. Homegoing’s include a ring shout to bind the grieving and support the deceased in their transition.
Upon arrival, homegoing guests are met by the church choir as they sing hymns about God, hope, and the healing strength of the Lord. The hymns and gospels, accompanied by the organ and a cadence of drums, echo through church halls, filling the guests with spirit and moving them through song. Guests sing, clap, raise their hands in praise and prayer, and even dance.
Music plays an integral part in setting the tone for a homegoing and provides those in attendance the space to freely express their emotions. Music has the power to unify mourners and allow those in attendance to offer a choral embrace to the family suffering a loss.
In African countries, this song and dance is prominent at burial ceremonies in the form of the ring shout — a conjure-rooted practice characterized by dancing in a circle, chorus singing, hand clapping, and percussion. Moving together in a circle keeps mourners in close rhythmic connection and offers the same choral embrace heard at homegoing’s.
Used by many enslaved communities in the antebellum south, the ring shout was considered a sacred dance and song, often in the form of a call-and-response that allowed Black folks to express themselves in safety and brought joy in the face of grief to those who participated. The ring shout is believed to allow folks to embody intimacy with their ancestors. It’s seen as a ritual with the power to open a portal for collective mourning and celebration.
5. Homegoing’s conclude with a repast to nourish the grieving and celebrate life.
After the homegoing service and burial of a loved one, family and friends gather once again to find joy in the act of breaking bread and celebrating Black life at the repast — an occasion that focuses on food and fellowship and signifies the intimately intersected feelings of melancholy and life anew without the physical presence of their loved one. Traditionally, the food is prepared by the home church as a gift to the bereaved. By sharing a meal with loved ones and friends, the bereft are given space to be vulnerable in their grief.
The repast offers a mourning community nourishment and space to repair the mind, body, and soul while immersed in an atmosphere of love and support. During the repast, there’s often a purposeful shift in mood and a shift to celebration, sometimes even a party.
A post-funeral meal is also customary in African funeral traditions. After a funeral, the whole community is invited to break bread at the deceased’s home.
A cleansing ritual is typically practiced before entering the home for the feast. Everyone must wash the dust and other remnants of the graveyard off of themselves at the gate of the house.
Some traditions include cutting pieces of aloe to be placed in the cleansing water, with the belief that it can remove bad luck. Often, community churches are involved in this ritual, using sprinkles of holy water to cleanse guests of their impurities. This cleansing helps ensure that the spirit of the deceased can pass on to their next life.
Death has historically marked the African American experience, from the deadly voyages of the Middle Passage to the violence of enslavement, and persists today at an alarming rate – Black Americans are three times as likely as white Americans to have two or more family members die by the time they reach the age of 30.
However, even in the face of great loss and cultural separation death, enslaved Africans and their descendants preserved sacred ancestral practices and infused them with new traditions. Today, homegoing provide the same refuge as the slave ceremonies once did, and allow emotions to be on full display – ranging from an outpouring of joy to the outcry of sorrow.
Homegoing’s offer Black communities the warm embrace in death, and provide Black families the love, support, and joy they need after suffering the loss of a loved one.
Resource:
Homegoings, a film by Christine Turner
Dec 20, 2022 | Advocacy, Appropriations, Community, Data Collection, Family, Federal Government, Grief, Research
In 2022, our community of supporters has grown by more than 50 percent for the second consecutive year. Our movement consists of people from every corner of America – from truck drivers to professors to homeschoolers and executives. We unite in solidarity to create a more compassionate world for those who will follow us. What do we do with the pain of loss? We create change.
We’ve done that in 2022, and we are on the cusp of much more. This year has been the most consequential yet in the advancement of bereavement policy, and we could not have made it this far without you. As we reflect on 2022 and look towards 2023, there are some bright spots we want to share with you:
- We are winning mindshare among our nation’s most esteemed federal health leaders. In an event hosted by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), our founder and executive director Joyal Mulheron, had the distinguished opportunity to provide a private briefing to key U.S. Department of Health & Human Services agencies on bereavement policy, research, and statistics. As an emerging social and health concern, it is imperative that government leaders understand the complexity of bereavement policy and its impact as it crafts and prioritizes its response.
- With Evermore’s support, Congress is directing the federal government to establish credentialing standards for grief therapists. Supporting bereaved people requires specialized training, which is not currently required for mental health practitioners. We are thrilled that Congress has directed federal health leaders to create universal eligibility standards to bring consistent and quality care to all grieving people.
- For the first time, Congress is encouraging CDC to collect bereavement data because of Evermore’s advocacy. Adding bereavement exposure to CDC data collection provides key demographic data and trends by race, geography, chronic disease risk factors, identity, and age, for example. A recurring data set of this magnitude will facilitate a better understanding of the scope of the problems connected to bereavement, and it will inform future policymaking and program priorities and investments.
- With Evermore’s support, Congress is directing federal health leaders to write the nation’s first report on grief and bereavement. COVID-19 and the nation’s concurrent mortality epidemics have impacted millions of Americans, yet grief and bereavement are not prioritized in our nation’s health policies, programs, or funding initiatives. This report will provide a holistic evaluation of the scope of the issue, the populations impacted, and the interventions offered to support grieving children and families.
- We are fighting for consumer rights, protections, and price transparency in the funeral industry. In almost every state in the nation, funeral homes are not required to publicly share their prices before a bereaved family walks through their doors, thereby leaving newly bereaved families vulnerable to price gouging and spending on services they don’t need or want. Evermore is preparing comments to submit to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on why funeral homes should be required to share pricing information publicly. This proposed amendment may substantially protect bereaved families during times of loss and crisis.
- Evermore releases America’s Forgotten Orphans, a free 58-page report, to bring childhood bereavement to the attention of federal lawmakers and agencies. In collaboration with Penn State and the University of Southern California, we identified a 22-year trend in increasing childhood bereavement across every state in the nation and among every racial and ethnic population. Childhood bereavement, and bereavement generally, have been a long-standing public health and social concern hiding in plain sight.
- Evermore releases free fact sheets and tools to calculate childhood bereavement in your own jurisdiction. We’ve developed 51 state fact sheets that help state and local lawmakers assess and better understand childhood bereavement in their jurisdictions. In addition, we’ve provided tools allowing local champions to calculate the prevalence of childhood bereavement in their school or Congressional districts.
- We are bringing the nation’s experts in grief and bereavement to you. This year we launched In the Know, a monthly video series featuring some of the nation’s experts in grief and bereavement, including luminaries like Megan Devine, one of our nation’s most respected grief leaders, and Dr. Toni Miles, who helped pioneer bereavement epidemiology.
- Evermore’s national grief directory continues to be a top resource for grieving children and families. Our comprehensive grief directory features more than 300 nonprofit resources across every state in the nation and continues to grow.
- Our weekly newsletter keeps our community connected, learning, and engaged. This year we launched a weekly newsletter to provide insights on bereavement science, policy, and community action. Our readership continues to grow as our stories and information aim to transform our nation’s systems toward supporting the lives of bereaved children and families.
We are not sitting on the sidelines and hoping change will come. We are actively working to advance these critical developments with respect and credibility each day. As we close out 2022, we want to thank you for making our work possible. Unlike other health and social concerns, bereavement policy and law are not funding priorities for any philanthropist or foundation we can find. Instead, people like you solely fund our movement.
We will continue our work building a healthy, prosperous, and equitable future for all bereaved people in 2023. If you would like to support our work in the coming year, you can make a donation here.
We wish you and yours a warm, healthy, and restorative 2023!
Dec 12, 2022 | Community, Family, Grief
This list was developed in collaboration with Dr. Donna Gaffney, an expert in children’s grief.
A tragic event is difficult to comprehend for even the most mature, knowledgeable adult. For children and adolescents faced with trying to understand such an overwhelming experience, the task is even more daunting. How can a young person grasp the enormity, meaning, and consequences of an occurrence that brought death, injury, or harm into his life? These are the times, as parents and teachers, when words fail us. Sometimes we are consumed with our own emotions and other times, we cannot seem to begin these important conversations. But literature can give us a starting point. Because stories are a form of medicine. They offer catharsis, they hold a mirror so we can better see our own experiences, and they invite us to question, demand answers, get angry, feel sad, and somehow learn to cope and grow and move forward in our experience. Because books can be such a powerful balm during a time of grief, here’s our list of favorite books for kids and teens that explore the difficult experiences of death, grief, loss, and bereavement.
The Dead Bird by Margaret Wise Brown (Harper-Collins, 2016)
Ages 4 and up
Finding a still warm but dead bird, a group of children give it a fitting burial and every day, until they forget, come again to the woods to sing to the dead bird and place fresh flowers on its grave. An excellent book handling the subject of death in which all young children have a natural interest.
The Heart and The Bottle by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel Books, 2010)
Ages 4 and up
There is a wonder and magic to childhood. We don’t realize it at the time, of course… yet the adults in our lives do. They encourage us to see things in the stars and to find joy in colors and laughter as we play. But what happens when that special someone who encourages such wonder and magic is no longer around? We can hide, we can place our heart in a bottle and grow up… or we can find another special someone who understands the magic. And we can encourage them to see things in the stars and find joy among colors and laughter. This remarkable book is a touching and resonant tale that will speak to the hearts of children and parents alike.
Listen by Holly McGhee (Roaring Book Press, 2019)
Ages 4-7
Experience the power of listening to your heart, paying attention, love, and empathy in Listen, a simple and tender picture book by Holly M. McGhee and Pascal Lemaitre, the creators of the New York Times bestseller Come With Me. The buoyant verses and gentle art show young readers how to connect with the whole world. From exploring sensorial surroundings ― what you see, breathe, hear, taste, and feel ― to becoming aware of our shared experiences.
A Shelter for Sadness by Anne Booth (Peachtree Press, 2021)
Ages 5 and up
A small boy creates a shelter for his sadness so that he can visit it whenever he needs to, and the two of them can cry, talk, or just sit. The boy knows that one day his sadness may come out of the shelter, and together they will look out at the world and see how beautiful it is. In this timely consideration of sadness and mental health, Anne Booth offers a beautiful depiction of how children (and everyone else) must care for their emotions and give attention to their grief on a regular basis.
Sweet Sweet Memory by Jacqueline Woodson and Floyd Cooper (Jump at the Sun, 2007)
Grades K-3
Now that Grandpa’s gone, Sarah tries to remember what he used to say about the garden. Like us, he would tell her, a part of it never dies. Everything and everyone goes on and on. But Sarah feels very sad, even though Grandma and all the relatives are with her, sharing stories and hugs. How can life go on without Grandpa? As summer slips into fall, Grandma and Sarah share a rich garden harvest and their sweet, sweet memories of Grandpa. The stories and memories of loved ones, Sarah learns, are what keeps everything and everyone going on and on. This spare and beautiful picture book balances sadness and mourning with the comforting notion of the continuity of all life.
The Scar by Charlotte Moundic (Candlewick Press, 2011)
Grades K-4
When the boy in this story wakes up to find that his mother has died, he is overwhelmed with sadness, anger, and fear that he will forget her. He shuts all the windows to keep in his mother’s familiar smell and scratches open the cut on his knee to remember her comforting voice. He doesn’t know how to speak to his dad anymore, and when Grandma visits and throws open the windows, it’s more than the boy can take — until his grandmother shows him another way to feel that his mom’s love is near. With tenderness, touches of humor, and unflinching emotional truth, The Scar captures the loneliness of grief through the eyes of a child, rendered with sympathy and charm.
Currently out of print but available in libraries or through sellers like Thiftbooks.com and AbeBooks.
The Color of Absence: 12 Stories About Loss and Hope edited by James Howe (Simon & Schuster)
Grades 6-10
“In adolescence, we feel our losses as if for the first time, with a greater depth of pain and drama than we are aware of having experienced ever before,” writes James Howe in his introduction to this collection of short stories which celebrated fiction authors for young adults explore the many faces of loss — the common thread they share and the hope that is borne through change. Featuring stories by Naomi Shihab Nye, Jacqueline Woodson, Chris Lynch, Walter Dean Myers, Annette Curtis Klause, Norma Fox Mazer, and others.
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (Harper Festival, 2006)
Ages 9 and up
This Newbery Medal-winning novel revolves around two friends. Jess Aarons is eager to start fifth grade and wants to become the fastest runner at school. All seems to be on track, until the new girl in class, Leslie Burke, leaves all the boys in the dust, including Jess. But the two become fast friends and spend most of their days in the woods behind Leslie’s house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia. One morning, Leslie goes to Terabithia without Jess and a tragedy occurs. It will take the love of his family and the strength that Leslie has given him for Jess to be able to deal with his grief. Author Katherine Paterson wrote the book for her son, who lost a friend in a tragic accident at the age of 8.
Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories That Smash Mental Health Stereotypes edited by Nora Shalaway Carpenter & Rocky Callen (Penguin Randomhouse, April 2023)
Teen & Young Adults
In this inspiring, unflinching, and hope-filled mixed-genre collection, sixteen diverse and notable authors draw on their own lived experiences with mental health conditions to create works of fiction that will uplift and empower you, break your heart and stitch it back together stronger than before. Through powerful prose, verse, and graphics, the characters in this anthology defy stereotypes and remind readers that living with a mental health condition doesn’t mean that you’re defined by it. Each story is followed by a note from its author to the reader, and comprehensive back matter includes bios for the contributors as well as a collection of relevant resources. A discussion guide for parents, young people, and teachers will be available.
Nov 7, 2022 | Advocacy, Community, Grief, Research
It was the beginning of her junior year at the University of South Carolina (UofSC) when Mairead Peters’ cousin unexpectedly passed away. Not only was Peters just getting settled into her new class schedule, she was now forced to navigate the school year while wading through the shock and pain of her grief.
The following semester, Peters also experienced the death of her father.
Despite losing two loved ones in such a short period of time, Peters decided to continue her studies, hoping college could serve as a distraction to the grief she now carried. To help her through this journey, Peters sought resources at her university, but found none were available.
“I had to be my own advocate and try to search for other people like me,” says Peters. “There weren’t really any groups offered at my college, and so I just had to rely on my own friends and support group, which I was fortunate enough to have. But a lot of people don’t have that. I went to a big school, and the fact that they didn’t have some type of support group already in place was pretty shocking to me.”
Peters is not alone in her experience, as recent research indicates that 25 and 30 percent of college students, if not more, experience the death of a family member or close friend in a given year. In the span of two years, that percentage rises to 40, according to several 2020 studies conducted by Dr. Chye Hong Liew and Dr. Heather L. Servaty-Seib of Purdue University West Lafayette.
After experiencing the death of someone close to them, students must not only navigate their grief, but also continue on with their studies if they decide to remain in school, in which case, according to Dr. Liew and Dr. Servaty-Seib’s work, students become more at risk of poor academic performance, lower semester GPAs, and possibly withdrawing from enrollment compared to students who have not experienced a loss. Even so, few college campuses in the United States have instituted adequate bereavement-leave policies to protect grieving students and their academic success. Unlike working adults, students attending a college or university are not able to take time away from school — often because they will miss lectures, labs, or exams. Without specific policies in place, professors are provided the ultimate discretion in the treatment of absences, even for students who are recently bereaved.
“Students who are believed and supported in their grief will be more engaged both while they are students and when they transition to alumni,” Dr. Servaty-Seib wrote in an email. “If we are truly committed to our students’ academic, professional, and holistic growth and development, we must create structures that facilitate rather than hinder their success.”
Purdue University has been addressing the needs of grieving students since 2011, when a bereavement policy — only the second in the country at the time — was enacted by the university faculty senate. The Grief Absence Policy for Students (GAPS) protects university students and their ability to make up coursework after experiencing the death of a loved one or friend.
The Purdue policy outlines qualifying requirements about the relation of the student to the deceased, the number of leave days allowed, and the additional absences afforded to students for travel considerations. Students can also petition for leave for the death of a family member or friend in the event that their situation is not explicitly covered by the policy.
When a student wants to request leave under GAPS, they first fill out an online form through the Office of the Dean of Students (ODOS) to report the death. After completing a report, the student’s instructors are notified of their absence. Upon receipt of either an obituary or a card from the memorial service following the student’s leave, the ODOS counselor sends an official notification to the instructors.
“At a minimum, students should receive the same assurance that employees have in terms of their ability to take days away for bereavement leave,” Dr. Servaty-Seib wrote. “Here at Purdue, our advocacy did begin with looking at the standard bereavement policy for employees.”
Drawing from the Purdue Paid Bereavement Leave policy for employees and the student bereavement policy at Ball State University — the only other known policy at the time — the Purdue Student Government (PSG) began drafting a resolution for a bereavement policy for students in 2010.
Before meeting with members of the faculty senate, Brad Krites, then president of PSG, leveraged his relationships with the Purdue student newspaper, The Exponent, to call for the publication of articles that featured grieving students who had fallen through the cracks created by the absence of a bereavement policy. The paper also published editorials championing support for the proposal.
After approval of the resolution by the university student senate, Krites introduced the proposal before the faculty senate. One month later, in March 2011, the resolution was overwhelmingly approved by the university faculty senate.
According to Dr. Servaty-Seib, the policy was a success, largely because it addressed the faculty concerns about consistency in applying the policy, validation of the death information submitted by students, and assurance that the process wouldn’t require more of their time.
Although the policy has been in place for 11 years now, research conducted by Hannah Darr, a student of Dr. Servaty-Seib revealed that only 11 percent of students were aware of the policy and knew how to use it, while 26 percent had never heard about the policy.
Students who were aware of the policy said they learned about it through faculty members and orientation programs. Students who were eligible to utilize the policy but didn’t said this was either due to lack of awareness or concerns about compromising their academic standing.
The study also found that Black and brown students were even less likely to know about, and less likely to utilize, the Purdue student bereavement policy, despite experiencing a much greater number of deaths while in college.
Dr. Servaty-Seib offers that Black and brown students may feel less comfortable communicating about their losses with campus faculty and staff based on prior, unfavorable campus experiences.
“They may not want to share their business for fear it will come back around and be used against them,” Dr. Servaty-Seib wrote. “These students may not trust that faculty will offer them the ability to make up work, or if they do allow it, will see them as asking for extra assistance rather than it being their right.”
Sydney Rains, vice president of the student body association and a senior at Gonzaga University (GU), is working to fill this bereavement policy gap at her university. Rains began to push for a similar bill after her own experience with the death of a loved one that irrevocably altered the final months of her junior year.
Rains and her father share a tattoo.
In an interview with GU’s student newspaper, The Gonzaga Bulletin, Rains explains that after she experienced the death of her father, she felt a lack of care and support from her university.
“The experience I had coming back to school was much different than what I expected it to be at a small, intimate institution that is very much looked up to in their mental health aspects,” Rains told The Bulletin. “I think that, at a school where we talk so much about caring for the whole person, it’s essential to live up to that promise by providing structure and support for students during times of tremendous loss.”
Less than two weeks after the death of her father, Rains returned to class, working feverishly to complete assignments she had missed during her absence.
Rains with her father during a track event.
“That point was when I was really starting to feel the drive to pursue a bereavement policy because my experience was just so exhausting,” Rains told The Bulletin. “It’s heartbreaking to think of other students having to go through the same situation that I did.”
After numerous meetings and conversations with university provosts, deans, and other decision-makers, Rains was able to gain enough support to back a resolution she intends to write and propose to the student body senate.
Her resolution calls for the university to develop a bereavement policy that covers absences and academic deadlines after the death of a loved one. Gonzaga’s administration operates on a shared governance system, comprised of an academic council and faculty senate. After her proposal to the student body senate, Rains plans to consult the faculty senate to get more feedback. The final step will be to present the proposed policy to the academic council, where members will vote to determine if such a policy will be developed.
Although these two universities are working toward student bereavement equity, Dr. Servaty-Seib says every institution should consider its own culture and general approach to bereavement when exploring the implementation of such a policy.
In an article published in the Journal of College Student Development, Dr. Servaty-Seib and Dr. Liew advise colleges and universities seeking their own student bereavement policy to look to existing faculty and staff policies for guidance, engage with key faculty leaders and administrators, use the media to generate awareness, and perhaps most importantly, involve students and their stories.
“The most compelling and convincing voice for a student-focused policy like a student bereavement policy may be a student,” writes Dr. Servaty-Seib. “If grieving students are open to sharing their stories and challenges, consider including them in the process. Their words can be powerful, and they may appreciate the opportunity to make a difference through advocating for future grieving students.”
Oct 24, 2022 | Community, Family, Grief, Parent
Since October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month – which aims to bring more acknowledgement and recognition to the grief, stress, and hardship parents experience after a miscarriage or the death of a newborn baby – we decided to share three stories of loss to contextualize this unique, and challenging maternal experience.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 20,000 infants died in the U.S. in 2020 before their first birthday – that’s approximately 542 deaths for every 100,000 live births. Another 24,000 babies are stillborn in the U.S. each year. When taken collectively, the annual incidence of stillbirth and infant deaths is approximately equivalent to the number of deaths by suicide. Not to mention that as many as half of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.
“It is an underappreciated and often unrecognized type of loss, particularly for mothers,” says Evermore founder Joyal Mulheron. “Like other forms of loss, miscarriage or the loss of an infant can often create compounding hardship and accumulating stress for the parents. However, over recent years, these losses are receiving increasing attention.”
Hollywood has produced at least two notable films on pregnancy loss. “Roma,” which swept the awards circuit, and “Pieces of a Woman,” which earned Vanessa Kirby a nomination for best actress from the Academy Awards. Both films contribute to the growing recognition that these losses are deserving of social and legal support.
We sat down with both Vanessa Kirby and Academy Award-winning actress Ellen Burstyn, who both starred in the 2020 film, “Pieces of a Woman.” The film follows Martha, a young mother whose life changes irrevocably when her home birth ends in an unimaginable tragedy — her baby is stillborn. Played by Kirby, Martha is forced to navigate difficult relationships with loved ones — and her own emotional journey — as she learns to live with the grief of losing her baby.
https:///youtu.be/fq9qnZXzI0c
“Whatever Martha’s feeling is unknowable to everybody else, and as much as she needs and wants to reach out to other people, I think it’s so colossal that she doesn’t know how,” says Kirby. “I think that’s the frustration that people around her feel, that they can’t get in touch with where she’s gone. Because I think even she doesn’t know.”
As seen in the film, a miscarriage or stillbirth can be a very personal experience — one that can be hard to communicate to anyone who hasn’t experienced it themselves. Although this grieving journey is unique for every mother, there’s often a feeling of isolation for mothers who experience the death of their babies.
“Even though this is a deeply painful movie, we kind of hoped that it would make people feel less alone with the magnitude and the solitary nature of deeply grieving someone,” says Kirby. “The nature of it is having to go through it alone, having to navigate through time, space, and reality, when your reality is completely different and has been shattered. You have to pick up the pieces and try and reform them.”
“Pieces of a Woman” breathes new life into this complicated issue and exposes viewers to an authentic account of the internal and external experiences that mothers must face after losing a baby.
In addition to the emotional toll of such losses, losing a pregnancy or infant is often physically taxing for women, who may experience pain and discomfort from pregnancy loss, or the toll of labor and delivery, only to be followed by the grief of losing a child whose arrival had been joyously anticipated.
Gina Mathias, who lives in Maryland, couldn’t escape the feeling of guilt after her experience with stillbirth. She felt personally responsible for the death of her son — after all, she’d been carrying him and felt she should have been able to feel if there had been complications with her pregnancy.
https:///youtu.be/kq5-8QjhNVY
“Ultimately, I was the only person responsible for Forrest’s life,” says Mathias. “At the end of the day, I was his mother and I was supposed to protect him.”
Miscarriages and stillbirths are often unexpected and unexplained, which can leave mothers and their families with an ambiguous loss to grieve, and with few answers for why the loss occurred.
“It’s really hard living with not knowing why your child died,” says Mathias. “If there was something that you did wrong, if there was something you could have done to prevent it.”
To further complicate the experience, many medical providers are not trained or equipped to aid mothers and their families with the nuanced, emotional challenges of miscarriage, stillborn death, and the death of an infant.
After Mathias’ stillbirth, she was brought to the maternity ward with other birthing mothers. “All around us we could hear other women giving birth and their crying babies,” says Mathias. “And that was just too much.”
Recent data from the CDC show that the U.S. infant mortality rate has continued to disproportionately impact Black women and their families. In 2020, the infant mortality rate for Black babies was nearly 11 deaths for every 1,000 live births, which is double the rate for White babies.
Although it happened more than 30 years ago, the stress and pain of losing two children is still a fresh wound for Jackie Williams, a Black woman and bereavement doula who lives in Maryland.
https:///youtu.be/hQMKizr5LhA
“It’s like a wound that you’ve put a little dirt over, but if a strong wind blows, it’ll blow the dirt away and that wound is resurfaced,” says Williams. “On the dark days, I felt really alone and I felt as though, with [my daughter] Carolyn, I blamed myself for her death for years and years.”
Williams was 20 years old when she lost Carolyn only about five months after her birth. This experience was devastating for a young mother with little access to resources, and Jackie says she became so consumed with the death of her daughter that she began to contemplate taking her own life.
“At that point, that was my lowest,” says Williams. “I wondered — if I take enough pills, I could just die without any pain. Because I wanted to die, but I didn’t want to hurt.”
Williams struggled for years with the grief and pain of losing her daughter until she made the decision to seek out a therapist. The pure act of being able to talk with someone about her experience provided her with the support she needed to begin her healing journey.
Although therapy helped change the trajectory of Williams’s life, there is still much more that can be done to improve the support and care for women who are grieving the loss of a child.
“The deep bonds of motherhood do not simply stop when your child dies,” says Mulheron. “It’s not uncommon for mothers to want to continue parenting their child in death too. This is why we are working to expand legislation and develop other tools to support mothers and families in the aftermath of loss. The nation is woefully behind and there is a lot more work to do.”
Oct 17, 2022 | Community, Family, Grief, Parent
Jena Kirkpatrick with her son, Ellis McClane.
Jena Kirkpatrick was hesitant to visit a medium after experiencing the death of her 19-year-old son, Ellis McClane, who died in a car accident in 2011. But five years after her loss, Jena decided to take a chance and scheduled an appointment.
“That’s something everyone wants for the people who have passed — to talk to them again,” says Kirkpatrick, who also works at Evermore coordinating communications and outreach.
However, Jena felt uncomfortable during her reading. She was keen to the medium’s overly zealous attempts to know her son, and she struggled to make connections between the medium’s messages and her personal experiences. At one point, the medium told her Ellis had become frustrated because she wasn’t catching the references in the messages he was sharing.
“It hurt my feelings,” says Kirkpatrick. “I let myself be vulnerable in the situation, and then I felt a little pissed off that the medium hurt my feelings because I didn’t understand his message. … I just wanted to hear that my kid loves me and he’s okay.”
Psychic mediums claim they can receive messages from the spirits of people who’ve passed on and can act as channels between those who have died and their surviving loved ones. This is why psychic mediums can be an attractive choice to aid in the grieving process. However, every psychic reading is a unique experience — some leave grieving loved ones in more pain and distress, while others provide a deep sense of spiritual connection.
For her part, Kirkpatrick was undeterred by her disappointing experience and decided to reach out to another medium, this time a friend who was beginning to share her clairvoyant gifts with others. To Kirkpatrick’s utter delight, this reading experience was much different.
“We did a couple of readings, and they were phenomenal,” says Jena. “It was much more positive. I felt like she was a lot more kind and empathetic and really took [the reading] in this beautiful and spiritual way.”
It was in this reading Jena finally received the message she had been yearning for — her son is always with her. Jena already had a strong sense that she was receiving messages from Ellis — she sees him in her dreams and often encounters butterflies while in nature — but now she had more reason to believe she really was hearing from her son regularly, in various ways.
“He said, ‘I can always be with you because I’m everywhere, Mom,’” says Jena. “I am always watching out for you, and when you hear me talking to you, it truly is what I’m saying.”
The permanency of losing a loved one can be one of the most perplexing parts of coping with death. It can be unfathomable to accept that you will never speak with your loved one again. This may be one reason why so many people choose to work with mediums after experiencing the death of a loved one, as suggested by research.
A 2012 study found that grieving parents reported finding support groups and psychics as the most helpful coping methods in their grief. The same study also found that about 30 percent of grieving parents received a reading from a psychic within the first four years of their child’s death.
Furthermore, a 2014 study revealed that grieving people experienced less intense grief after a psychic reading when compared to a visit with a mental health professional.
The Szewcyzk family.
Barbara and Walt Szewcyzk visited multiple psychic mediums for readings following the death of their son, Alex Szewcyzk. Alex died by suicide five years ago in their home after years of struggling with his mental health and alcohol use.
Almost immediately after his death, Barbara began to feel as though Alex was still communicating with the family. As they gathered around the kitchen table to discuss funeral arrangements along with Walt’s sister, Barbara suddenly got the feeling that Alex was not a fan of the lavish service they were putting together. Moments later, Walt’s sister’s phone began randomly playing the popular ballad, “Hello” by Adele, even after being turned off.
Barbara took this as a sign from Alex, and soon after, she decided to see a psychic medium.
“I got there, and she started talking about Alex,” says Barbara. “She described his death, and she wouldn’t have known, she couldn’t have known. She gave me a lot of insight and I left there [feeling] pretty comforted.”
Barbara was able to find the confirmation she had been looking for — that Alex was always around her, watching over her.
As she watched her husband struggle with the death of their son, and in an attempt to aid her family through their grieving process, Barbara encouraged Walt to speak with the same medium that provided her initial reading. Walt told Barbara he would trust her, and she booked him an appointment.
“He said to me, ‘I just wish Alex had given me a letter. I just wish he had explained to me what was going on,’” Barbara says of a conversation she had with her husband shortly before his visit with the medium.
Much like Jena Kirkpatrick, Walt had his reservations. His religious upbringing and scientific training made him question the legitimacy of psychic readings. He also worried about the medium’s credibility and authenticity. But after finding himself lost after the death of his son, Walt decided to be open to the possibilities.
During his reading, the medium presented Walt with a letter written with words she channeled from Alex — the letter Walt had always wished he had received from his son after his passing.
“The experience with the medium blew my mind,” says Walt. “I felt wonderful after I left [the appointment]. It reinforced that something is here, and that led me to an organization called DOPS.”
DOPS, or the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia, is a “university-based research group devoted to the investigation of phenomena that challenge mainstream scientific paradigms regarding the nature of human consciousness,” according to their website. The research team at DOPS seeks to explore human experiences that may provide evidence that consciousness does survive a bodily death.
“When you tie that in — science with real life experience — you really find that there is something there,” says Walt. “Life does exist and there is a realm around us that we can’t see because of our physical limitations.”
To others curious about whether they should see a medium to connect with a loved one who’s passed on, Walt suggests really looking into the messages that the medium provides, not forcing yourself to make connections where they don’t exist, and being open to a new reality that may call into question your current convictions.
“These mediums — the genuine ones that can bridge that gap — can provide not just healing for those who are grieving, but a renewal of an individual’s consciousness and help them grow,” says Walt. “My grief has been transformed into an energy that drives me to be a better human being. One that I think is truly rooted in the message of Christ.”
Yanie Brewer is a psychic who visits with hundreds of people like Walt and Barbara as part of her work. She says she’s been able to see and hear the spiritual world since birth. At the age of three, Yanie was nearly legally blind. As a result, she could see more of the spiritual world than her own earthly reality. As she got older, it seemed only natural that she uses her intuitive gifts to help others.
“It’s very healing because, on the other side, people only tell the truth,” says Brewer. “It can be very healing for people to understand that their loved ones still have life on the other side.”
Yanie advises people not to let one “bad reading” ruin the opportunity to connect with a loved one. Andrew Witt, who also works as a psychic agrees, and recommends that people seek out multiple readers to find someone they can connect with.
Witt also stated that the quality of a reading can largely depend on the beliefs, expectations, and openness of those seeking answers. He added that it’s also important to work with the medium during the reading to get confirmation that the connection is happening with the spirit of the intended person.
“Nothing that comes from spirits is judgmental,” says Witt. “[The messages] are always very respectful and always very empowering. If [the reading] doesn’t meet those criteria, then that’s something that’s not the real deal.”
Working with a medium after the death of a loved one is a personal choice — one that should only be made when it feels right for you, and if you feel ready to try the experience. If you know friends who’ve worked with mediums, you might first ask them to refer you to someone they’ve had a positive experience with.
Before scheduling an appointment, check out the medium’s website or social media presence to explore whether you feel connected to the person. When you identify a medium that feels like a good match, go in with an open mind and heart.
