For instance, people in eras past wore black clothing for up to a year after the death of a loved one. That clued other people in to the fact that the other person was grieving. And Hispanic cultures erect shrines to deceased loved ones in their homes or at cemeteries on the Day of the Dead. Our society has really moved away from some of these rituals and encourages people to just get on with it. Like the crosses people put up near the sites of fatal car accidents, the shrines help people heal.
Rituals are actually very important in grief.
It's also a way of paying a public tribute to the person and saying the person mattered, she said. Five years after Richard Baatz died at the age of 55 from heart failure, his family still decorates his grave in Kingsley each year with ceramic deer and white gravel, as well as flowers and other adornments. Some cemeteries limit the items that can be placed around graves. But we try to be as diplomatic as possible. Most people are not that elaborate, but it just depends on how they handle it.