Create Meaning Through Ritual

Creating traditions, rituals, and ceremonies that celebrate your person is the shit. Seriously. It’s the opposite of the get-over-it and move-on mentality. Instead, by celebrating the existence of the person we lost and including details of their personality and passions in traditions that honor their legacy, we create meaning that makes us feel whole again.

I mean, if your person is anything like my daughter, they’re fucking amazing and deserve to be celebrated! Remembering what made my daughter special fills the void created by her absence. Whether it’s lighting a candle during holidays, visiting a grave site on anniversaries, or even preparing a favorite meal, rituals allow us to intentionally connect with our beloved people long after they’re gone.

Ways to Create Meaning

Here is a list of some ways you could stay connected and remember your person.

• Light a candle.
• Visit the grave or spread ashes in a meaningful place.
• Plan and eat a favorite meal of your person.
• Volunteer in your person’s honor.
• Talk aloud to your loved one.
• Donate to a cause in your person’s honor.
• Write letters to your loved one.
• Look through pictures and photo books.
• Create an online or paper scrapbook.
• Paint rocks with positive messages and leave them for
people to find.
• Eat at a favorite restaurant.
• Go on a trip either to a place your loved one enjoyed
OR always wanted to visit.
• Finish a project your loved one never got to finish.
• Update your person’s social media pages with
memories.
• Leave an empty chair at holiday functions.
• Keep a memento in your pocket or near your bed.

I have personally done almost every single thing on this list, whether it was for my sister, mom, dad, or Libby. One of the most difficult yet cathartic things I ever did was write a letter to Libby after she died. I am going to share it with you, even though it’s insanely personal, in the hopes that it might inspire you to do the same.

Dear Libby

Twenty days. It’s been twenty days since you left, and I miss you every single second, baby girl. Every. Second. I couldn’t open this journal for a long time. I wanted to write—to write about you, to write TO you—but I couldn’t start because I know that no matter how good of a writer I am, I will never, ever be able to come up with words for how I feel and what this is doing to me. There are no words strong enough to describe how lost I am without you . . . to describe the hole in my heart, the pain in my chest, the nonstop thoughts in my head.

Libby, I can only tell you that you were the brightest light in my life, and that light has gone out and my world is so dark and empty without you. I see you in everything, all day long. You are everywhere. I have a zillion little memories of you, and they are always replaying in my head. And I love them, Sweetie . . . I love them SO much. But it is SO HARD.

Best Daughter Ever

I hope you know how much I love you, and how amazingly proud of you I am, and that raising you was the best thing I ever did with my life. You were everything—everything I could’ve ever wanted in a daughter and so much more. You were quite literally the BEST. DAUGHTER. EVER.

I meant it every time I said it, baby girl, and I hope you knew it and believed it. I hope you felt my love clear down into your bones. My love for you is timeless, and endless. And no matter what I’m doing, you will be there with me—laughing, and smiling, and giving me big squeezie hugs, and telling me that I’m the “Best. Mommy. Ever!” and saying that you love me over and over and over again.

Libs, I am so grateful that I got to be your mama, even if I have to go through this pain. Having you in my life saved me at my hardest times and brightened the good times even more. You brightened my world. You brightened everyone’s world. God, I miss you so much. I would do anything to have you back. I want to trade places with you and give you the life you deserved.

But I can’t. And so, I’m stuck with sending all of this love and pain out into the universe. I love you more. I love you most.

Best. Daughter. Ever. Goodnight, Libber-beans.

Ugga-Mugga. Love you to the moon and back.

XOXOXO,
Mommy

Check out Brooke’s other writing on Open to Hope: ‘You’re SO Strong’: A Misunderstanding of Grief – Open to Hope

Brooke Carlock

Brooke Carlock has been punched in the face by grief on more than a few occasions, but she keeps getting back up and hopes to inspire others to do the same. She is the creator of the “Grief Sucks with Brooke Carlock” YouTube Channel and host of the “Mourning Coffee” Podcast, and cofounder of Live Like Libby, a nonprofit organization that provides dance scholarships in her late daughter’s honor. She has also been a middle school English teacher and freelance writer since earning a bachelor’s degree in English from West Virginia University and a master’s degree in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University. Her writing has been featured on Emmys.com, Open to Hope, Scary Mommy, and Filter Free Parents. Now an empty nester, Brooke resides in a tiny house by herself, which makes her introverted heart happy. When she’s not making videos, providing grief support, writing books, or wrangling middle schoolers, she enjoys reading historical fiction, baking, and going to farmers markets. She lives in a small town in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.