Handling Death: A Brief History of Grieving Rituals and Human Mourning

Women suffering early pregnancy loss are often unable to bury their babies, especially in cemeteries. This can be for many reasons sometimes they are unable to collect the body, the body was needed for testing, or they do not have the resources available bury their little one. Many women aren't even given the information necessary to move forward with how to proceed even if they wanted a burial. 

But this problem tends to lead to a bigger question. If we want to participate in grief and mourning rituals as we grieve our miscarried children, what should those rituals look like? How do we acknowledge our grief and honor our little ones rightly. 

In this episode Emily is joined by Holly Russell to talk about the history of grief and mourning rituals in America. With a background as a museum curator and librarian Holly offers insight to how we have dealt with death in America. We specifically look at the heavily ritualistic Victorians to see what we can learn from them.