ABSTRACT
Working through the pain of grief, including making required psychosocial adjustments and moving on with life, commonly correlates to initially frequent but then progressively diminishing cemetery visitation. Avoidance behavior, including refusal to visit an otherwise-accessible grave or memorial of a significant decedent, suggests some failure in working through the pain of grief. Visiting the grave or memorial also allows emotions of grief to be mitigated through keeping a part of the decedent alive within the life of the mourner, and thereby facilitating a progressive emotional relocation. For most Western mourners, the cemetery becomes a crucial focal point for remembrance of their deceased, and it offers an antidote for unhealthy repression of grief. Achieving a satisfactory psychosocial transition is the ultimate desirable outcome of working through grief. And grief-work is the sum of a mourner’s endeavors toward achieving such a satisfactory bereavement outcome.
