How to Deal With a Death Anniversary

When my dad died 14 years ago at the age of 47, my family instinctively knew how to spend the first few days: making funeral arrangements, contacting friends and family, picking a burial spot, and gathering with hundreds of people in a church to say a formal goodbye.

​It was after that first week that grief became a tumble in the dark. When we–my brother, sister, and I–said good-bye to our mother and returned to our respective homes, we did so with hearts torn and little direction. Not so long ago, people like us would have worn black for a year to give everyone else a clue that we were mourning, but neither our cultural, nor faith traditions have such concrete practices in place now. Modern life, for better and worse, doesn’t allow for public declarations...

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