The Rev. Collins expressed to the audience his experience of grief and what happens to the people in the afterlife. Family Studies and Social Work hosted an week about dealing with grief starting on Nov. 11. (David Huynh/The Crest) 
Undergraduate students told their experiences of grief visitors and family members. (David Huynh/The Crest) 
Students attend a candlelit memorial walk. (David Hyunh/The Crest)
The University of St. Thomas’ School of Social Work and Family Studies program hosted a week-long event series to dissolve some of the stigmas surrounding grief.
The week began on Nov. 11 with “Grief Literacy 101,” an event that taught the first steps to building a compassionate community surrounding grief.
At the event, a Memorial Tattoo Project began, where attendees were welcomed to get a professional portrait of their tattoo taken that memorializes a loved one who died
Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, Melissa Lundquist was inspired to bring the project to St. Thomas after attending an event in Canada and meeting the scholar who started the movement.
“Centuries ago, we would wear mourning bands, we would wear black and we would have these visible symbols that we were grieving and in mourning, and we don’t have those traditions anymore,” Lundquist said. “This is one way to sort of let other people know too that you’ve had this significant loss, but also a way to carry forward in the constraint. The memory can always be a bit bittersweet, but over time, hopefully, more sweet and thicker.”
The tattoo portraits were taken at the start of the event series, so they could be displayed on the final night.
On Nov. 12, the School of Social Work and Family Studies program hosted an evening of hope, remembrance and community through an Italian dinner, prayer led by the Rev. Chris Collins, a celebration of Día de los Muertos and a candlelight memorial walk across campus.
Event coordinators aimed to create programming that extended beyond conversations on grief.
“Tuesday night’s event creates a space for community and memory building through uplifting food and more, ultimately cherishing the memories of those who have touched our hearts,” said Professor and Director of Family Studies Audra Nuru. “In celebrating the unity and diversity of our community, we’ll also learn about the cultural significance of Día de los Muertos and create a heartwarming visual tribute to our loved ones. It’s an opportunity to connect with our shared humanity and leave with a renewed sense of hope.”
Building Compassionate Communities through Grief-Informed Practice
Nov. 13 marked the beginning of the event series’ panels.
Lundquist and Nuru said they were committed to having a robust panel with different expertise and sought licensed practitioners who subscribed to this idea of grief-informed literacy.
While the “grief literacy movement” truly began in 2020, rising out of the pandemic, these experts had been exploring this before the movement started, integrating it into their practices, Nuru said.
The panelists came from a variety of backgrounds: palliative care, social work, family therapy and more.
The experts said they see grief in all areas of their practice, but how people grieve or cope varies.
“Some people cope by staying busy while there are also people who need to share those stories,” Stacy S. Remke, an instructor at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work said.
The panelists also addressed the common misconceptions or stigmas surrounding grief so that people can receive better support.
“One big stigma is that you only ever grieve if you cry or you talk about it,” Remke said. “Grief is brutal. It’s a really hard thing to carry and to be able to normalize it is important. There’s so much grief on our planet right now, and I hope for spaces where we can be kind to each other on that.”
Another grief misconception is that it can only occur after someone has died.
“Grieving people before they are gone impacts your relationships in the here or now,” licensed psychologist and marriage and family therapist, J. Phillip Rosier Jr. said. “We don’t give enough time, energy and attention to people who are grieving before an incident happens.”
Becoming grief-informed can help combat these stigmas.
“Being grief-informed and literate means we know that there is no finish line to grief,” said Sharon Keunhae “S.K.” Chung, a therapist with The Center for Grief and Loss.
The panelists also discussed ways people can work to better support people grieving in marginalized communities.
“One way of supporting is allowing people to grieve in the natural way, however they may do it,” Rosier said. “For some, death is not the end. Death is a continuation. Death is a transition.”
Rosier later added that it is also “important to learn about traumas and historical traumas that may affect an individual’s grief.”
Additionally, there is a lack of diversity in the helping professions, which needs to change, Susan Piepgras, a social worker in Rosemount, Apple Valley and Eagan and part of the district’s Mental Health Leadership Team said.
“We need more diversity in these helping professions,” Piepgras said. “We need to be intentional about making that happen.”
To conclude the third night of “Good Grief, St. Thomas!,” panelists discussed navigating loss within schools, addressing an audience primarily composed of college students.
“We talk about how they died, but I think the healing is in asking, ‘How did they live?’” Rosier said.
Keynote Address: Dr. Tashel Bordere on “Suffocated Grief”
On the final night of the week, St. Thomas’ Donne Unite choir performed two songs about loss.
“Grieving is a blessing, for it was an honor to know the person you grieve,” a choir student said, introducing the first song, “Therefore I Will Hope” by Alex Gartner.
The song concluded by playing a single note over and over again, representing a single heartbeat slowing down.
The second song, “I’ll Be On My Way” by Shawn Kirchner, “explores the comfort that death can bring us” and is intended “to celebrate the lives of our loved ones instead of getting caught up in the physical loss,” another choir student said.
Following Donne Unite’s performance, scholar and author Tashel C. Bordere talked about suffocated grief, a term she coined, addressing the penalties associated with loss, such as misinterpreted grief expressions, social policing and systemic repercussions like loss of wages or academic penalties.
“I represent you today,” Bordere said.
The audience shared what grief felt like to them in one word. Suffering, heavy, longing, devastating, exhausting and mystery were some of the words shared.
“Grief is unpredictable,” Bordere said. “It is so many things.”
Grief is not always regarding a person, Bordere said. Grief can be related to security, safety, control, independence and freedom, trust, faith, financial changes, loss of life as it was, time, isolation, loss of physical contact with family and friends, relationship changes and more.
“If the loss matters to you, it counts,” Bordere said. “We don’t compare losses.”
For some, grief can come in layers.
Disenfranchised families may experience historical trauma, intergenerational loss and trauma, cumulative loss and co-occurring loss, adding another layer to their grief.
“COVID was just another layer,” Bordere said. “The election was just another layer. They’ve already been dealing with a lot of these things, and there’s even more layers on top of that, and so when loss is co-occurring, it can be even more challenging to deal with.”
While it may not have been an “added layer” for all, to some, the 2024 election was a retraumatization, Bordere said.
Data shows that the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2024 election increased attention to death and non-death loss, depression, anxiety, trauma and grief while exposing hidden inequities.
This information has been available, Bordere said, but, “We can increase our awareness, y’all, if we decide we want to.”
In closing, Bordere asked the audience, “What might help you with your own healing? What might help you be more patient with yourself? Look at other people around you differently. See them. Check in on them.”
Cecilia Wallace can be contacted at wall1238@stthomas.edu.
Correction: A previous version of this story misquoted Audra Nuru.