I remember thinking how odd it was that President Clinton went to work the day after he buried his mother, the only real parent he ever had. Virginia Kelley died of breast cancer on Jan. 6, 1994. She was buried on Jan. 8. On Jan. 9, the President was in Brussels, giving a speech. And that's what our culture does - worship those who travel fast, carry no baggage and sublimate the hurt of loss in the quest for the next new thing.
Raines sees a yearning for another way.
His course, Death and Dying, has become the religion department's most popular offering. Studying the grief process is, for many of them, a first chance to contemplate their own losses. Traditional Judaism accepts that grief comes in stages and has rituals for each milestone. Islam gives special recognition to the close relatives of the deceased on each anniversary. Secular society acts as if it has outgrown the signs and restraints that once marked the mourner.