Apr 10, 2023 | Community, Family, Grief
My own loss and the deep grief that accompanies it brought about profound change in the way I experience creativity. Deep loss breaks you down in a way that also cracks you open. There is loss of control and surrender. Tears and sorrow pour out, but light also pours in. I learned to listen to my voice in whispers — my intuition — instead of dismissing it. Instead of trying to craft something that made sense, I listened to thoughts and wrote down what came, almost like transcribing. Then I could always go back and shape things. Writing from a place of intuition and deep vulnerability helped in my healing, and I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that it resonated with others.
I have lost count of how many times poetry has been a life raft for me. Poems can help us to know we are not alone. They can access emotional places that ordinary conversation does not. I believe that the purpose of art is to whisper truths to each other in the dark. There is an intimacy and magic in reading words on a page that move you, that speak to you. That is the gift a poet is giving us with her/his/their careful attention—to let you know you are not alone in the dark.
About Beth Wood
Beth Wood is a modern-day troubadour, poet, and believer in the power of word and song. Beth has been writing, performing, and creating for twenty-five years. In addition to releasing fifteen albums, Beth has released three books of poetry, Kazoo Symphonies, Ladder to the Light (2019 finalist for the Oregon Book Award Stafford/Hall award for poetry and 2019 Winner of the Oregon Book Award Readers’ Choice Award) and Believe the Bird (Winner of the San Francisco Book Festival Poetry Award). She has been recognized by the prestigious Kerrville New Folk Award, The Sisters Folk Festival Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Award, the Billboard World Song Contest, The Oregon Book Awards, and many more. Beth lives in Sisters, Oregon, with her rescue dog Hannah and is continuously writing and rewriting her artist’s manifesto.
Resources:
Beth Wood website
Kazoo Symphonies, by Beth Wood
Ladder to the Light by Beth Wood, 2019 finalist for the Oregon Book Award Stafford/Hall award for poetry and 2019 Winner of the Oregon Book Award Readers’ Choice Award
Believe the Bird by Beth Wood, Winner of the San Francisco Book Festival Poetry Award
Beth Wood’s photo was taken by Heaven McArthur
Read other acclaimed poets reflections on grief
Apr 5, 2023 | Family, Federal Government, FMLA, Grief
By Prerna Shah
When a loved one dies, many family members seek bereavement leave to attend to family affairs, their grief, and sort through the many changes that invisibly unfold behind closed doors. It may be surprising to learn that most employees have no legal right to take leave, except in five states in America (learn more about state bereavement laws here).
The Family Medical Leave Act, also known as FMLA, provides job and benefits protection for 56 percent of the United States workforce; however, bereavement is not an eligible condition for job or wage protection. Many may be surprised to learn that newly bereaved families have no legal right to take leave to cope with the death of a loved one.
So, what is a newly bereaved family member to do?
In honor of National Employee Benefits Day, Evermore sat down with Jeff Nowak, an FMLA expert, who provides legal strategies and solutions for employers of all sizes across the globe, for an in-depth conversation on all aspects of FMLA.
1) What is the FMLA?
FMLA is a federal law that provides up to 12 weeks of leave to an eligible employee in a 12-month period. There are a number of reasons why you may be eligible for FMLA job protection, including
- An employee’s own serious health condition,
- the employee has to care for a family member with a serious health condition, or
- due to pregnancy,
- bonding time after childbirth or adoption, or placement into foster care, and
- a qualifying need due to the active duty of a spouse, child, or parent.
While FMLA generally covers all public-sector employers, it also extends coverage to private employers that have 50 or more employees in a 75-mile radius. In general, to be eligible, an employee must have worked for at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months.
2) Does FMLA offer bereavement leave?
No, generally, FMLA does not specifically provide bereavement leave; however, Department of Labor statements and legislative history indicate a miscarriage is classified as a “serious health condition.” As a result, both miscarriage and stillbirth — two conditions before independent life begins — should be eligible for FMLA bereavement leave if the birthing person is unable to work because of her own “serious health condition” (e.g., physical recovery from miscarriage and/or labor and delivery, emotional distress). Paternal coverage may be extended if the spouse is caring for a loved one with a serious health condition.
For most bereaved families, however, bereavement is not an eligible event for FMLA job or wage protection.
Novak shares, “Oftentimes, employers have their own bereavement leave policies. Generally, these policies cover one to three days of bereavement leave, but that is not enough for most people. FMLA can be invoked to cover bereavement leave if the employee has a serious health condition like depression or anxiety, but you would need to invoke the ‘serious health condition.’”
3) How can you best communicate with your employer after a loss?
Communication is key.
According to Novak, “It’s so critical that the employee simply communicates upfront. Be candid with your employer. I’m hurting right now. This is a really difficult time for me, I can’t keep my attention on my work when I’m dealing with this loss in my life.”
“Some of us are fearful of that, right? We’re fearful of what the employer may do. We are in fear of losing our job as a result. But it’s important to characterize what you’re dealing with; if you need to start using words like, “My mental health is at issue here, or I just need to leave for my own mental health.” I tell employers that that line alone triggers an FMLA obligation. Now we potentially are in an FMLA-protected situation.”
Novak suggests that it’s beneficial to involve the HR team: “It’s important to be in full communication with the HR team. Look at your FMLA policy and find out, who does your employer want you to communicate with?”
Candid and open communication with the employer can make a difference; however, only share what you feel comfortable with. When the employer understands that coping is inducing mental distress, that’s when FMLA may be triggered, and this affords the employee job-protected leave.
4) What compensation is offered through the FMLA?
Leave associated with FMLA is unpaid.
When someone close to us dies, families often incur unexpected costs like funeral expenses, moving property or estate titles, among others. Novak shares, “By its very nature, federal FMLA is unpaid. And that remains (so) today. And I would say for the foreseeable future, federal FMLA is going to be unpaid.”
Nowak adds, “As a result of Congress being unable or unwilling to pass a paid leave law at the federal level, we’ve seen quite a bit of growth at the state and local level when it comes to paid FMLA leave.”
If you are able to take bereavement leave, it’s important to keep in mind that employers have no legal obligation to pay the employer during their leave.
Nowak notes that while a handful of states have passed their own FMLA laws, others have passed paid FMLA laws and others have provisions for paid sick leave (learn more about state bereavement laws here).
Nowak says, “It’s likely that we may see a paid leave law that involves contributions from either the employer or the employee or both sharing (contributions) that provide the funding for paid leave.”
5) Where can I find out more information?
For more in-depth coverage of our session with Jeff Nowak, you can head to our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe while you are checking our videos. We regularly update our channel with resources from experts working in the area of grief and bereavement, and our ‘In the Know’ sessions are very popular and informative.
On our website, you will also find many relevant and expert-led resources on FMLA – miscarriage and stillbirth, state laws and legislation related to bereavement leave, U.S. military bereavement leave guidance, general information on grief, how community leaders can help, our national grief support directory, books on grief for adults and children, our most recent achievements in advancing in bereavement care, and more.
Please also help spread the word about FMLA and bereavement leave, have these conversations with your colleagues and coworkers on this National Employee Benefits Day.
Mar 30, 2023 | Community, Family, Grief, Parent
By Terri Schexnayder
Country music’s familiar heart-tugging lyrics of country-western ballads about cheating, love lost, and traveling roads in pickup trucks always seems to have a place for grief. Hits are littered with songs about love, death, grief, and faith as artists share their feelings and coping strategies ranging from tears to whiskey.
Steve Seskin is a name you might not know, but he’s written seven number one hit songs and is a two-time Grammy-nominated songwriter for songs that both feature grief, including Tim McGraw’s “Grown Men Don’t Cry,” and Mark Wills’ “Don’t Laugh at Me.”
The inspiration for “Grown Men Don’t Cry” came from a conversation between Seskin and McGraw about their fathers. Seskin was estranged from his father, who died from a heart attack shortly before they were scheduled to reconnect, and he spoke about the impact his father’s death had on his life.
“I wrote the lines, ‘I just placed a rose on his grave and I talked to the wind’ because that happened to me. I stood by my father’s grave in Queens, New York, and had the ‘mend fences’ talk that we had never had in real life,” he said.
Seskin and McGraw bonded over the fact that neither had a good relationship with their dads. Seskin said, “It was the rose on the grave line that killed me, and McGraw, who grew up not knowing his dad, understood. Later, Tim and Tug McGraw became close.”
“Our dads weren’t the epitome of what a dad was supposed to be. It can’t be good for you to suppress sadness, grief, and emotions. I don’t want to be that kind of dad. I want to express my emotions. Emotions should be embraced — you need to go through them. When you deny it, you mess with the process.”
Grammy-nominated songwriter Seth Glier described the power of his favorite country song about loss, “One More Day.” The song was written by Bobby Tomberlin and Steven Dale and made famous by the band Diamond Rio. “I love the second verse, ‘first thing I’d do is pray for time to crawl.’ I especially appreciate how much space there is in the writing for the listener to insert their story into the song. This song could be about anybody yet for most people is about a very specific somebody.”
Glier, who lost his brother Jamie seven years ago, shared “Jamie was born with autism, loved horseback riding, swimming, and pottery and lived his life without the ability to speak in an oral form. He had a language, but it was one all his own and I often credit him with my interest in songwriting. My brother’s death was my first introduction to what I call the territory of grief. The territory is sort of like an ocean. Other people in my life have since passed and brought me back there. After the initial awkward and painful fumbling around that territory, I’ve found a fountain of gratitude and compassion there. I’ve found that I can connect deeply with just about anybody now. I consider that a tremendous gift from Jamie.”
Seskin and Glier co-wrote “When You Lose Someone Like That” for Evermore, and for anyone who has loved and lost someone they dearly love.
Like “One More Day,” the absence of specific explanations for Evermore’s “like that” refrain intentionally does not name who has died. This technique is used in many country songs. “For example, country music star Kenny Chesney’s 2005 release, ‘Who You’d Be Today,’ written by Aimee Mayo and Bill Luther, doesn’t name a specific person, rather the songwriters used “you” to connect directly with the listener,” noted Seskin.
“We hear the listener saying, ‘like what?’ It was about the suggestion of sadness. It can come out of nowhere. Songs serve many listeners,” said Seskin.
“In the end, we write to share our songs with many people…we want the listener to complete the piece, bringing their own life to it. They understand the person they lost more than I do. There is value in not defining things or limiting the story.”
Country music’s best will take center stage this weekend in the annual Country Music Television Awards in Austin, Texas. Loss is prominent for two Performance of the Year nominees. Emmy Russell and Lukas Nelson are nominated for their performance of “Lay Me Down,” originally sung by Willie Nelson, Lukas Nelson’s father, and dearly departed Loretta Lynn. The other nominee is the Judds’ performance of “Love Can Build a Bridge.” It’s a touching performance because Wynonna Judd performs with her late mother, Naomi, who died by suicide just one day before being inducted into the Country Hall of Fame last April.
During her acceptance speech, Wynonna remarked on the two conflicting emotions conveyed in her title song, “Broken and Blessed.”
I’m somewhere between hell and hallelujah’ … this is me, broken and blessed.
“I’m gonna make this fast, because my heart’s broken, and I feel so blessed. It’s a very strange dynamic to be this broken and this blessed. … Though my heart’s broken, I will continue to sing, because that’s what we do,” Wyonna said.
Resources:
Steve Seskin
Seth Glier
When You Lose Someone Like That
Judds Country Music Hall of Fame
Mar 10, 2023 | Family, Federal Government, Grief
By Terri Schexnayder
Often, when someone dies, we seek to support the grieving family in a meaningful way. In a sign of solidarity and love, we attend memorials or funerals, send condolences, prepare meals, and sometimes participate in athletic events or donate to fundraisers for a related cause.
When a child or teenager loses a parent, their lives can be upended. Beyond losing the relationship, a child may experience food or housing insecurity, loss of healthcare, or even logistical challenges attending after-school programs. Their school may struggle with compassionate policies and procedures and seek to have the student return to school as soon as possible to ensure educational continuity (see our list of helpful ideas for compassionate schools here). Even university students report similar challenges following a death (see Evermore’s efforts in advancing bereavement support among universities here).
Yet, there is a little-known economic benefit that a bereaved child may be eligible to receive if either of their parents participated in the United States workforce. This Social Security benefit is available to some bereaved children, payable upon their parents’ death. However, some experts project that more than half of America’s parentally bereaved children are not receiving the benefit, resulting in upwards of $15 billion in benefits not being conferred to bereaved children and families).
More than 2.2 million children in the United States today have experienced the death of a co-resident mother or father. Dr. David Weaver estimates that 45 percent of children with one parental death receive the Social Security Administration (SSA) benefit, and 49 percent of fully orphaned children receive the benefit. Why so many children do not receive their eligible benefits is poorly understood. In some cases, families do not know about the benefit, or an administrative error denies an eligible child. In other instances, bereaved children or orphans do not qualify because their parents did not achieve fully insured status. This means that either parent did not earn enough wages to receive the benefits.
According to the SSA, an unmarried child may be eligible for benefits if they are:
- Younger than age 18;
- 18-19 years old and a full-time student (no higher than grade 12); or
- 18 or older with a disability that began before age 22.
Once the child reaches age 18, they will no longer be eligible to receive benefits unless they are a student or disabled.
If you know a child who has experienced the death of a parent, please share Evermore’s guidance on how to apply for these benefits. Also, consider sharing SSA’s application for benefits with their caretakers.
SSA guidance states, “A child can receive up to half of the parent’s full retirement or disability benefit. If a child receives Survivors Benefits, he or she can get up to 75 percent of the deceased parent’s basic Social Security benefit.”
Weaver’s study revealed that “when Social Security and other government programs are accessed, evidence suggests that child well-being is stabilized, thus plausibly facilitating better educational, health, and economic outcomes—a benefit not only to individuals, but also to the nation in terms of elevated human capital, productivity, and innovation.”
“It takes a village to raise a child. The potential for lifelong success, well-being, and prosperity depends on us — the community — to support a grieving family. As the nation reels from concurrent mortality epidemics, it’s important to understand the public benefits system, especially for our nation’s most vulnerable children,” says Joyal Mulheron, Executive Director of Evermore.
Resources:
SSA Blog Post: Social Security Pays Benefits to Children After the Death of a Parent
SSA Fact Sheet: Benefits for Children
Evermore Fact Sheet: How to Apply for Child Survivors Benefits
Parental Mortality and Outcomes among Minor and Adult Children
Feb 19, 2023 | Family, Grief, Parent
By Terri Schexnayder
For millions of people living in America, the death of a child is a tragedy that silently unites many, even presidents. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has cited his son’s death, Beau, as motivation to run for president and has shared his reflections and experiences on grief and loss in many eulogies. Former President George H.W. Bush advanced global health measures citing the death of his three-year-old daughter, Pauline Robinson (“Robin”), who died of leukemia in the 1950s.
Beyond Presidents Biden and Bush, four other modern-day presidents have lost a child, including Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. According to Doug Wead, historian and author of All the Presidents’ Children: Triumphs and Tragedy in the Lives of America’s First Families, released in 2003, 26 children of presidents died before the age of five, and many more before the age of 30, not including the death of President Biden’s son Beau in 2015 and his daughter, who died in a car accident in 1972.
Oftentimes, these losses occurred before the president held office, but the life-altering impact carried into their days in the Oval office. “When we lose someone close to us, it leaves an imprint — the death of a child leaves an indelible mark,” says Evermore founder Joyal Mulheron. “Experiencing the death of someone you love deeply does not simply leave you. You don’t ‘get over it.’ Rather, your love and both their presence and absence will continue to be a part of your life, and your relationship with them will continue to evolve forever.”
Child loss is uniquely challenging in many ways, as is can impact parents’ sense of meaning, identity, and worldviews. According to Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, who directs Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Bereavement Clinic, “Child death defies the expected order of life events and can shatter assumptions about how the world works, and thus bereaved parents often struggle to make sense of their loss.”
Mulheron, herself a bereaved parent, says, “After you have buried a child, what could possibly be more painful? In some ways, you’ve already hit rock bottom, so any other subsequent loss — whether that’s running for president or shifting U.S. policy or partisan bickering— nothing will ever meet or exceed the irrevocable pain of losing a child. You have nothing to lose.”
At the Republican National Convention in 1988, when George H. W. Bush was nominated for president, Barbara Bush spoke about how the couple coped with Robin’s death.
“The hardest thing we ever faced together was the loss of a child. … I was very strong over the months we were trying to save her – at least, I thought I was. I was just pretending. But when she was gone, I fell apart. But George wouldn’t let me retreat into my grief. He held me in his arms, and he made me share it and accept that his sorrow was as great as my own.”
Decades later, President Bush’s experience with bereavement after his daughter’s illness and death became motivation to shape his policies around the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In his first speech on the subject in March 1990, President Bush reflected on the question his family once faced when Robin was hospitalized for leukemia.
“We asked the doctor the same question every HIV family must ask – why, why was this happening to our beautiful little girl?” He continued, “There is only one way to deal with an individual who is sick: with dignity, compassion, care, confidentiality, and without discrimination.”
At the State of the Union on February 7, 2023, President Biden introduced his guests, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, parents of Tyre Nichols, a Black man killed by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop one month earlier. Reaching out to Mr. and Mrs. Wells and other bereaved parents in the audience, including Michael Brown Sr., the father of Michael Brown, a Black teenager who was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
President Biden spoke to these bereaved parents and others not only as the President of the United States, but as a fellow parent who had lost both a daughter and a son. “As many of you personally know, there are no words to describe the heartache of losing a child,” he said, “but imagine, imagine if you lost that child at the hands of the law.”
After the death of his 46-year-old son Beau to brain cancer, then Vice President Biden spoke openly about his grief and later wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose, about his special relationship with his son.
“When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think what he might have done with a few more years,” he wrote. “And you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours.”
After deciding not to enter the 2016 presidential race, Biden commented, “Dealing with the loss of Beau, any parent listening who’s lost a child, knows that you can’t — it doesn’t follow schedules of primaries and caucuses and contributors. Everybody grieves at a different pace.”
But the tragedy of losing Beau was not his first loss. Like other presidential leaders before him, he has suffered multiple losses in his life. In 1972, shortly after being elected Senator for the first time, Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and his 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in an automobile accident. Decades later, during his presidency, his experience offered some insight to grieving parents after the school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.
“During President Biden’s State of the Union address two weeks ago, he referenced Beau’s death and its aftermath, but it was vague, and many, if not most, viewers would have missed it,” Mulheron says.
“For example, too many of you lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, wondering what will happen if your spouse gets cancer, your child gets sick, or if something happens to you.
“Will you have the money to pay your medical bills? Will you have to sell the house?”
According to Mulheron, “President Biden, like many other bereaved parents, particularly those who have lost a child to prolonged medical disease, may experience housing insecurity resulting from the exorbitant health care costs families endure to save their child.”
In a 2016 interview with CNN, then-Vice President Biden shared then-President Barack Obama’s insistence that the Biden’s not sell their home to pay for Beau’s medical bills.
“This is exactly why I founded Evermore. No grieving parent, children, sibling, or spouse should experience housing, job, food, or healthcare insecurity in the aftermath. To build a united nation, we must continue our commitment to family and community during the hardest times. Because that’s when it really counts, whether you’re the president of the United States or our neighbor.”
Other Resources
USA Today: Hoping to see Robin: The loss that forever changed former president George H.W. Bush
USA Today: Hoping to see Robin: The loss that forever changed former president George H.W. Bush
CBS News: Biden acknowledges Tyre Nichols’ parents during State of the Union: “Something good must come from this
The White House: Remarks of President Joe Biden – State of the Union Address as Prepared for Delivery
CNN: CNN Biden says Obama offered financial help amid son’s illness
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
