h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the very most civilized things about living in the American South is the custom of coming to the home of the bereaved with food. It is almost unbelievable how many people will converge with food. The strange thing is that you do it for other people all your life, but you don't realize what it truly means until they do it for you.

After the funeral, when you are on auto-pilot emotionally, the act of graciously receiving all the people and the food causes you to get outside of the personal loss a little. And if the people feel close enough to have brought food, they also share a little with you about what the loss means to them, too. I discovered how many more lives my father had touched, and that made me appreciate how much I had learned from him myself. And that was a great basis to celebrate his life, rather than mourn his loss, and that helped a great deal.

I still occasionally get a little maudlin about it, but only from the point of view that he really never got to enjoy his retirement, and take it easy for a while. Maybe he wouldn't have been happy with that, though. At any rate, the social belonging of shared food, and shared experiences helped initially, and in the long run, with the grieving process.

What a simple and thoughtful way to help someone through a very difficult process.