Connecting objects to memories and how it helps us grieve

The feeling of grief that follows the loss of a loved one can oftentimes feel overwhelming. One of the many ways that people tend to cope is by using objects that belong to their loved ones. Connecting the memories of the deceased with the objects and belongings left behind can help them cope with that loss. By doing this it could also help bring together other people who are also grieving the same person. Even though these objects won’t replace the person, they can take the place of the absence and give some type of closure. This could also help the family feel like that person is still with them. 

We tend to use objects left behind to help us remember and cherish our past loved ones, whether that be lessons we’ve learned from them or just simply good memories we have with them. These objects tend to carry an emotional weight and holding onto them, allows us to keep the bond and connection with the past alive and allows us to move forward. By connecting them to certain objects in our life it can help us grieve and move on as well as pass down our good memories of them to the next line of generations, like our kids and their kids.

Understanding and learning the importance of why people keep and cherish things from their past loved ones helps those who are grieving and wish to maintain a connection. This also allows us to empathize and connect with those still with us using memories and momentums of those who have passed. While these objects can never replace the person, they can help bridge the gap left by their absence, offering comfort and even a sense of closure. Such objects can also create opportunities for shared remembrance, helping families feel as though their loved one is still present in spirit. They can provide a sense of stability during this grieving period and also some emotional comfort. 

 Through other cultures, we can also learn and join the celebration of not only the dead but how to cherish the physical objects that we have of them. I will be exploring and defining ways that other cultures, focusing more on Mexican culture, like to memorialize and stay connected with their deceased loved ones. For example, in Mexican culture, the Día de los Muertos celebration centers around creating altars with objects like food, photos, and personal mementos. This practice helps families reconnect with the deceased, celebrate their lives, and offer a healthy way to process grief within a community. These rituals highlight the healing potential of physical objects, transforming them into anchors for both individual solace and collective remembrance.

 Remembering our loved ones is always important even if you don’t have something of physical value to them. Making art to represent your loved ones is one way of connecting physically with them. This is more famously known through Day Of the Dead.” It is common at this time of year for sugar skulls with people’s names written on them to be sold in stores and on street corner.” We do this as a way to keep us connected to those that have passed. Most people, though wanting to be connected through an object, don’t always have an object. But by painting and decorating sugar skulls, they are making a physical object that has a connection with their memories of their loved ones. 

Sugar skulls, or more specifically skeletons, are a huge part of this celebration. They help us remember those who have passed because it is tradition to dress them up and decorate them. “There is also throughout the republic an enormous variety of skeleton toys of all sizes and plastic materials, with the skeleton displayed as naked or clothed, holding a recognizable object like a pipe or musical instrument, and usually giving some indication of age, gender, occupation, and the like.” By doing this you are not only remembering and honoring those who have passed, we can also use this as a way to connect with our families by sharing stories and memories of them. Talking about them not only helps us grieve but helps us pass on their stories, which keeps their memory alive even if they are not.

Decorating these altars is also a huge part of the celebration and helps us connect to those who have passed. These ofrendas are important because they help us connect with those who have passed and those who are still with us. This practice helps families reconnect with the deceased, celebrate their lives, and offer a healthy way to process grief within a community. These rituals highlight the healing potential of physical objects, transforming them into anchors for both individual solace and collective remembrance. “One of the most distinctive features of the Day of the Dead, the so-called ofrenda, or offering, consists of breads, candies, and other foods which are placed on the graves of deceased relatives and used to adorn home altars prepared specially for the occasion.” Candies and other treats are offered to ensure that the spirits have a joyful reunion with their loved ones.

 Food can also be seen as object connecting you to your loved ones. On the ofrendas, a common tradition is to put the favorite foods of those who have passed. This symbolizes a way to honor them in a way by remembering their favorite meals and candies. Food serves as a form of comfort for the living, providing a sense of connection and healing. Preparing the food and sharing it with others during the celebration of Día de los Muertos allows families to process grief collectively. The ritual of cooking, sharing, and consuming food can be a way for people to support one another, bond, and create a sense of closure, comfort, and joy around loss.

 Losing someone who is very important to you is a terrible thing and finding a way to cope with it is hard especially when the emotions of it all are still fresh. One way people commonly cope is by connecting with the objects and belongings left behind by their loved ones. These items often hold profound emotional significance, providing a tangible connection to memories of the deceased. While they can never replace the person, they can help bridge the gap left by their absence, offering comfort and even a sense of closure. Such objects can also create opportunities for shared remembrance, helping families feel as though their loved one is still present in spirit. 

There are many reasons as to why people keep things and why this is important. When we grieve, we want to have something to keep us connected to the ones who have passed. Some of the more common things that people tend to keep are pieces of jewelry, clothes, pictures, toys, or any type of gift. “Rather, it’s about understanding that once someone dies all of the sudden their things have new meaning. Things like rosaries, or cards, or pictures or books you never gave a second thought to are now hard to part with. People unconsciously feel, ‘if I can keep this stuff, I can keep this person.” Holding onto these things lets us feel some type of connection to the person and they have a new type of significance to them. Having an emotional attachment to personal objects after losing a loved one is a natural and huge part of the grieving process. This can also help you look for closure as well in the long run.

Many times, people tend to try to incorporate these objects into their everyday lives. We can use the pictures and rosaries as an example. Most people will frame old pictures of the person and keep them in their house. This being a more common practice and something that helps give closure to people as well. This can also be connected to the Day of The Dead as well as putting pictures of your loved ones is another thing that it puts on an ofrenda aside from the candies and foods. This is to honor them and show that we want them to come back on this day. “Families create the altars with photographs and candles as a way for their departed loved ones to find their way back to their living relatives, and the food and ofrendas serve both as nourishment for the deceased after their journey as well as enticement and motivation for them to come back to the land of the living.”  By holding onto these objects and pictures, we hold onto the memory of them and use them as a way to bridge the connection between the living and the dead.

Using objects to bridge the gap between the living and the dead also helps us keep them close to us in our hearts. Grief is a very painful process and by holding onto items, we can hold onto the memory of the person, and by extension, keep a part of them in their life. These objects provide a source of comfort during this difficult time. They also help us keep their memories alive, acting as a memory marker that we can revisit over time. This is very important to the grieving process and helps those who are grieving to come to the reality that the person is gone. Most people use objects as a way to seek closure and they can provide a sense of peace. A widow might hold onto their late spouse’s rings or maybe even books. Even if they don’t read the books themselves, it holds a different meaning to them now. It’s a reminder of a life they lived together and can now serve as a way to honor them and keep them around.

Holding onto these objects, to some people, can be seen as denying that the person is actually gone and some may even argue that this isn’t a good way to cope with their death, but the benefits of holding onto these objects is actually better than to get rid of their objects and forcing a person to move on.“It’s okay to take your time to sort through things but if everything in the room is there to remove their death, the linking objects are likely being used more for the purposes of denial. This holding on and denying death can stir up other emotions that make grief feel more painful.” states Reid Peterson in an article titled Coping with Sentimental Objects After Loss. He points out that holding onto these objects and taking time to sort out your emotions through this process is okay, but he also says that holding onto them might not be the best way to move on. 

 “But what if someone just cannot allow themselves to let go of something because they remind them so much of their special person who died? What if this holding on to the past has become self destructive, even to the point that the items are taking over their home and lives?” He also points out that holding onto these objects can have its own danger take a toll on the mind and lead us to self-destruction. It has the potential to overwhelm a person and their daily lives by having these things around them. Though the grieving process is obviously different for everyone, he tries to say that having these objects around it could lead you to become obsessed with them and trying to prolong the grieving process by keeping yourself in denial that the person is gone.

Most people seek comfort in the objects left behind. Instead of viewing this as a form of denial, this can be viewed as an emotional connection between the deceased and the grieving. There is obviously a need to balance those things out as well. Taking time to sort through belongings and emotions after losing someone will definitely take a long time, but the last thing a person should be thinking about is getting rid of these personal objects. ​​Holding onto objects doesn’t necessarily mean that you are refusing to accept this but oftentimes is a necessary step in the grieving process. They allow the grieving person to engage with their memories and maintain an emotional connection to their loved one.

Sometimes we hold onto these objects because there is some form of guilt or regret or unresolved emotions/feelings that we are holding onto. Moving on from someone who has passed is a difficult process and finding a way to cope is very important. “We hold onto stuff for so many reasons – guilt, comfort, anxiety, uncertainty, security and more. We hoard because we’re scared, we hold onto things because we’re frightened what will happen if we let go, we can’t afford to buy new or a replacement, we spent money on it already, it was handed down through generations, we seem frivolous to just get rid of it, waste is bad for the environment, we don’t know where to get rid of it.”  Antonia Colins basically explains the reasons why we hold onto things while also showing that most of the reasons are because of the negative emotions we are feeling at the time. A common thing is also to feel guilty of letting things go, such as clothes or books, when someone passes. But more of the reason that people do this is because they want to keep memories of the person in any way they can, whether they use these objects later on in life or not. Doing this also doesn’t prolong the process of moving on or grieving. This helps us come to the acceptance that the person is gone but the realization that all we have left of them is their personal belongings.

 A word that does come up a lot when talking about moving on is “decluttering” which is basically to get rid of things you “don’t need” or aren’t going to use and while this may be effective to some people, it also seems like a terrible word to use when someone is grieving the loss of someone who was important to them. Jo Hammer states “If you cared for a family member or spouse in your home before they died, you can be surrounded by things that remind you of that difficult time. In this case, it could be healthy to remove them.” Removing the items could help us accept their passing. By doing this, we could avoid the constant reminder of them and in a way speed up the grieving process. But multiple times in her article, she uses the word decluttering and in a way, she’s minimizing the actual reason why people keep these items.

People don’t just keep the objects of the person they loved because they want to “take up space.” They keep them because they want that connection. They want a reminder that the person was once alive and happy and a huge part of their lives. Obviously, the meaning of the object will change over time. The feelings that are connected with the person’s objects will shift from a more grieving feeling to an accepting one. Holding onto personal objects isn’t because they’re trying to replace their loved one with an object. Nothing can replace the living and we can’t try to. But we can remember them and should take the time to grieve no matter how long. Yes, denial is one of the steps of grieving but this will happen no matter the situation or if you keep their belongings around. 

The argument that unresolved feelings could stop us from moving on and sometimes make people fall into a worse state of mind or further into depression because of this is valid. These feelings could also make it difficult to let go of some items or harder to look at them. But by keeping these items the meaning of them would change and they would serve as a symbol of what was left unresolved and by having these items, one could try to resolve them within themselves. We shouldn’t force ourselves, or anyone for that matter, to move on and get rid of these personal belongings. Keeping them is a good way to cope and a great way to honor those who have passed. 

When a loved one dies, their absence can feel so profound that it seems as though the bond itself is broken. But by holding onto personal objects, that bond remains, even in a tangible form. This helps families and friends feel that their loved ones are still with them even if it’s just in spirit or in memory. Letting go of objects is also okay. Holding onto every single thing is understandable, but not holding onto everything is too. It’s just part of the process. This doesn’t mean that we’re stuck in denial and don’t want to go forward. Losing someone is overwhelming in itself and having some way or things to remind you of the person is good for this grief and moving on.

Having a way to connect the dead and the living is important as well. That being culturally or traditionally like an heirloom. Remembering and honoring those who have passed is the main point of the Day of the Dead. It helps us move on and accept them while also continuing their life in spirit. This celebration is huge on believing in spirits and “bringing back the dead” through spirits. Just having a belief that they are still around watching over us brings comfort to us. Even though some might think of this as crazy, finding a way to move on and be connected to your passed loved ones is more important. Shared rituals around objects are critical to the healing process.

Objects are not meant to replace the person who is gone, but they can bridge the gap left by their absence. They allow us to remember and, over time, to reconcile the loss. Whether it’s through photos, mementos, or even art, these objects allow us to keep the memories alive and share them with others, even with future generations. By passing down memories or creating physical representations of our loved ones, like sugar skulls in Day of the Dead celebrations, we keep their essence alive in our hearts and communities.

References

Peterson, R. (2021a, September 20). Coping with sentimental objects after loss. Medium. https://griefrefuge.medium.com/coping-with-sentimental-objects-after-loss-a0625fa9b6c8#:~:text=Linking%20objects%20are%20things%20that,a%20beginning%20and%20an%20end.

Lewis, E. (n.d.-a). Parting with a loved one’s belongings. Remembering A Life. https://www.rememberingalife.com/blogs/blog/parting-with-a-loved-ones-belongings#:~:text=%E2%80%9CRather%2C%20it’s%20about%20understanding%20that,I%20can%20keep%20this%20person.

Hagemann, T. (2020, November 10). The importance of food in Día de Muertos. The Digital Literature Review. https://blogs.bsu.edu/dlr/2020/11/10/the-importance-of-food-in-dia-de-muertos/

Wheaton, O. (2020, July 24). “decluttering” after someone dies: How and when should you do it? Marie Curie. https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/talkabout/articles/decluttering-after-someone-dies/277411