In the early days (or years) I simply let’er rip. Every emotion was heightened. I felt profound anguish and I let myself. The intensity came and went during the day; it was interspersed with periods of good memories and laughter and reminiscences. As the years pass, it becomes less vivid: i share the grief with a few people but they don’t feel the same as I.
. It is still sad and poignant but less intense and of shorter duration. At some point I notice that it becomes “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” In 50 years no one will remember me or my losses, i suspect. As it should be.
I rejoined a Synagogue but left after four years in spite of liking the community. I had the same issues with the formal ritual and theology that I had always had.
My family and I have set up, in one case, a memorial pocket park and rest stop along a county-long bike path. It gets a huge amount of traffic most of the year. I pay a landscaper to mow the small grassy part and trim the bushes.
I used to drive up and sit on the bench and watch the bikers, skaters, strollers, people pushing baby carriages and wheel chairs and chatting and laughing and then stopping at the little rest stop to sit on the bench or walk down the steps to the small river.
I no longer need to do that because I have the images in my mind. It has a finite lifetime, probably when the next generation in my family dies.
In another case, we established a bench with a plaque in a pleasant park-like area with pretty naturalised landscaping. It is part of a retirement community and will survive until the parts rot.
We have also set up a summer scholarship fund for 5 biologoy graduate students doing degrees in environmental science. The monies are managed by part of The Nature Conservancy and should last after I am gone, i hope.
Eventually we are all just parts of the continuum, however. .