Trigger warning: This entry discusses illness and the experience of losing a loved one to cancer. If these topics are difficult for you, please proceed with caution.
I'm not a religious woman. I hold no disdain for religions or their communities but choose not to engage in them. Like any other entity that consists of people, I try to view them with an open mind. Groups (religious or otherwise) have aspects to them that are breathtakingly beautiful, and appalling aspects as well. As with humans as individuals, the most sane approach for me is to judge actions, not the person/group as a general rule. Some actions, however, transcend shades of gray and venture into practices so appalling as to make me break my objectivity rule, but I digress.
So, I don't go to church and am not affiliated with any religion. But I do understand something that religions get right: the role of ritual in their practices. Rituals accomplish a lot, no? They unite a group, bring structure, and provide comfort during adversity. There is a practice that was common during my life in Puerto Rico that sticks to my mind as an example. After the passing of a loved one, we have a wake and a burial, similar to many Western practices. But we also have El Rosario. For nine nights after the burial, neighbors, friends, family, and loved ones gather at the chief mourners' home to recite a part of the rosary cycle. This guarantees an extra week or so for the family of the deceased to have the warm presence and support of the community.
I have a deep respect for how intricately a group can weave rituals as little scripts into life events. It adds panache, magic, and comfort. I believe that we can use rituals as individuals to enrich our lives or to bring calm when things look hopeless. I remember in 2011, after my mother became sick, sitting in the hospital with her. I was devastated. No one deserves to become so sick, but my mother was a shining light. Joking with neighbors, she generously gave when she had little, and she was affectionate with everyone. To see her sick was the worst thing, only on par with witnessing one of my daughter's seizures in terms of how upsetting it was. The doctors kept trying to comfort us, but the reality is that every system in her body was utterly destroyed by the disease, and she spent more of her last months in the hospital than not. I had to work still in Florida but would fly to her every few weeks to be with her. Much of that time I was simply watching her sleep or talking to the many friends and family that came to visit. And knitting. At the time, I only had enough skill to make simple things, like washcloths. But I made washcloth after washcloth, giving them away as I cast them off my needles. Because it was not about having washcloths. It was about the ritual of knitting, each stitch a prayer bead passing under my fingers. I'm not religious, but I prayed every damn second of my life during those few months. Sometimes praying for a miracle, for her body to somehow stitch together all the wounds in her. Toward the end, in tears, I prayed for release. I wanted her with me so badly, but I knew seeing her that she was not going to sustain the pain for long. No one should, young, old, or in between. To be honest, the stitches of my washcloth didn't stop the tears and the pain, but it focused my attention on something when everything around me was pain. Like a paper bag that calms hyperventilating to breathing, but does not heal the anxiety, I desperately did what I could to keep sane enough for her.
The focus here is not on ritual itself, but on opening up something in hearts and spirits that has been locked away so long that individuals can barely remember the source.
– Malidoma Patrice Somé