I recently lost a relative I loved a great deal. My culture has some very traditional ways of dealing with death and I found some of them actually helpful. Answer Rituals are actually a common element of life. We tend to develop ritualized ways of starting and ending our days. We tend to develop rituals around very basic functions such as mealtime.
Rituals can be a very effective way of communicating complex messages.
They can provide a certain order to our lives. And they can ease our way through otherwise difficult transitions. On the other hand, some rituals outlive their usefulness, but families and individuals hold onto them, trying to maintain certain life qualities by minimizing change. Such rituals can become inflexible and empty. Dealing with death is certainly one major life transition which can be aided by rituals.