Honoring a Life, Reflecting on Loss: A Personal Pause for Grief and the Forgotten Grace of Mourning Traditions

Funeral

My beloved grandmother was my world, and now she is gone. We shared an undeniable bond from the day I was born. My mother, too sick to care for me after delivery, remained in the hospital fighting sepsis shock. It was my grandparents who took me home. Lacking a bassinet at first, they placed me in a dresser drawer padded with soft pillows and blankets. This story became part of our family’s lore, my sweet grandmother told it over and over again, always with a smile and a tear, reminding me that my life had begun wrapped in their care.

That drawer became the first cradle of our bond, a connection that would shape the woman I became. My mother recovered and went on to have my brother and sister, but I was always my grandmother’s daughter in spirit. After my parents divorced and life at home became strained when I was quite young, I found my truest refuge in my grandparents’ home. They were my caregivers and my confidants, my safe harbor. My grandmother taught me the art of making a house a home, the importance of social graces, and the value of etiquette as a bridge to a better future. She polished me with hope when life had handed me rough edges.

When my grandfather passed away when I was 21, our trio became a duo, and the ground beneath us shifted. My grandmother, frail from heart issues since my childhood, began her slow decline. I was a young adult, six states away, starting a career in estate management, but I flew back every few weeks, shopping for groceries, accompanying her to doctor’s appointments, holding her hand through long illnesses. I became her primary caregiver emotionally and practically, even with my mother and sister nearby. Her health battles were many, and we used to joke that she had more lives than a cat, always bouncing back after each hospital stay.

At 89, she was placed into assisted living under strained circumstances, the kind shaped not just by age or illness, but by the earth-shaking fracture lines that form in families over time. The decision was fraught, marked by disagreement and the quiet tremors of control colliding beneath the surface. It was not the transition she would have chosen, nor the one I had hoped for her. Yet still, I showed up, visiting, comforting, doing what I could to preserve a sense of dignity and familiarity in a world that no longer felt like her own. She held the story of my first four decades, and now, at 95, she is no longer here. With her passing, something in me has gone silent too, an emptiness that lingers in the places where her voice once offered shelter. Grief now washes over me like a tide, pulling me into reflection, not only on my personal loss but on how we, as a society, mark and hold grief. This is what brings me to the heart of this piece, the mourning band…and the etiquette of public sorrow and the forgotten grace of mourning traditions.

The Symbolism of the Mourning Band

The mourning band, a simple black armband worn to signify loss, emerged as an understated yet potent symbol of grief. Tracing its earliest threads to the 17th century, this emblem gained prominence over time, wrapping itself around the sleeves of soldiers, police officers, and athletes in the 19th century and beyond. When words failed, the black band spoke: here stands someone touched by death. It remains a gesture that persists today, a quiet echo of tradition observed at memorials and funerals. While not as prevalent as it once was, the mourning band can be seen at funerals and memorials, but is still a widely held practice for Police Officers in the United States. When a fellow officer falls in the line of duty, officers will wear a black band around their badges to show their expressed sorrow. In the United Kingdom, black armbands are also occasionally worn by public figures and athletes during periods of national mourning. In Japan, a subtle black ribbon pinned to clothing often signifies grief, reflecting the nation's preference for understated displays of mourning. Across many parts of Africa, white or black cloth is worn, with the color depending on the cultural context and the age of the deceased. These global customs reveal the shared human desire to visually honor loss, even as the symbols and styles vary across borders.

Victorian Mourning as an Art Form

But it was the Victorians who elevated mourning into an art form. Queen Victoria herself, draped in widow's black for four decades following Prince Albert's death, became the enduring figure of grief embodied. Under her reign, mourning practices hardened into a rigorous social code, a choreography of sorrow that guided the bereaved through their darkest days with both structure and symbolism.

Stages of Victorian Mourning Attire

A widow, swathed in non-reflective black crepe, would move through stages of mourning dictated by time and tradition. “First Mourning” enveloped her for a year or more, requiring somber veils and minimal adornment. “Second Mourning” permitted subtle embellishments, while Half Mourning ushered in muted tones of lavender, grey, and mauve, gentle hues signaling her gradual return to the living world. Men, too, observed the rites, though their burden was lighter: a black suit, a cravat, the brevity of their mourning period reflecting society's differing expectations of gender and grief.

Mourning Jewelry and Stationery

Beyond clothing, grief infiltrated the most mundane aspects of Victorian life. Jewelry became a vessel for memory, with jet-black stones encircling wrists and throats, lockets preserving a beloved’s hair, and rings engraved with names that trembled on the lips of those left behind. Stationery bore the mark of loss, bordered with black edges that framed each word in silent lament. To write a letter upon such paper was to say, before pen met page, “I am still mourning; tread softly here.”

Mourning became an architecture of ritual: a scaffold for the bereaved to cling to when grief threatened to swallow them whole. It was a language both personal and collective, spoken in veils, jewels, and black paper margins. In this world, sorrow was not hidden; it was worn like armor and displayed like an heirloom, reminding society that to mourn is not merely to remember the dead but to bear witness to love that endures beyond the veil.

The Decline and Legacy of Mourning Traditions

As the 20th century dawned, these rigid customs began to dissolve under the pressures of modernity. Industrialization quickened the pace of life; wars tore through generations; grief itself became more private, more silent. The black bands, the crepe veils, the heavy-lidded envelopes faded. But the imprint remains. In times of collective loss or personal tragedy, the instinct endures. To wear black, to pause, to mark the absence. These vestiges remind us that though our expressions of grief may change, the desire to dignify loss with ritual is woven into the fabric of what it means to be human.

Conclusion: A Plea for Grace and the Return to Courtesy

I pen this as both an elegy and an appeal. In losing my grandmother, I have not only lost a cherished soul but also felt the inadequacy of how we navigate grief in the modern world. Today, I must announce my pain on social media, declare my sorrow in captions and hashtags, and make apologies for my shortness in public when people don’t know I’m in a fog of shadows. How I wish it were simpler, how I wish I could don a black armband and let it speak for me.

The mourning band was one of the most benevolent practices in society. At a glance, it allowed strangers to see pain, to offer grace…to hold a door longer, soften their tone, and extend patience. We have lost something precious in shedding this outward expression of a deeply inner struggle. What if we had armbands not only for death but for divorce, illness, financial strain, or mental anguish? What if our burdens could be signaled so that kindness might meet us where we stand? Grief and the forgotten grace of mourning traditions is one practice that I wish our society would return to.

As an etiquette and protocol professional, I know that progress has brought us much. But in some ways, we have regressed. There are courtesies, like the mourning band, that deserve resurrection. May this grief move me to call for its return, and this article is my way of doing so. And may it remind you, dear reader, to offer kindness freely, for you never know the battle someone is quietly facing.

References

LoveToKnow. (n.d.). Mourning band history and common protocols. https://www.lovetoknow.com/life/grief-loss/mourning-band-history-common-protocols

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Black armband. Wikipedia. Retrieved July 11, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_armband

Landow, G. P. (n.d.). Mourning customs and clothing in the Victorian period. The Victorian Web. https://victorianweb.org/history/mourning/6.html

Carmi, Z. (2022, February 14). “Until we meet again”: Victorian mourning practices. The Gettysburg Compiler. https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2022/02/14/until-we-meet-again-victorian-mourning-practices

Australian Museum. (n.d.). Mourning in the Victorian era. https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-the-last-taboo/mourning-victorian-era/

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Victorian jewellery. Wikipedia. Retrieved July 11, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_jewellery

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Mourning. Wikipedia. Retrieved July 11, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning

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Jennifer Laurence is the founder and president of Luxury Lifestyle Logistics, a leading estate management consulting firm renowned for elevating service standards in ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) luxury residential estates. With over 25 years of distinguished experience in hospitality and private service, she is a trusted authority in estate operations, specializing in optimizing household workflows, developing bespoke service protocols, and cultivating high-performing teams. Jennifer advises estate owners, family offices, and private service professionals on staff training, leadership development, conflict resolution, and guiding estates and luxury hospitality environments through organizational change and service culture creation. As a Doctoral Candidate in Organizational Leadership, she blends academic research with hands-on estate hospitality expertise, uniquely positioning her to drive operational excellence and foster collaborative, results-oriented estate teams. As Principal Liaison Director for the Private Service Alliance, she actively contributes to industry advocacy, thought leadership, and best practices. Her insight ensures that every facet of estate management—from daily service delivery to long-term operational strategy—meets the highest standards of precision, discretion, and sophistication for the families she serves. 

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