Awkward and stoic, we Brits are terrible at dealing with death – but in Mexico and Iran the grief is shared

There’s nothing wrong with tearfully stifling a giggle at the local church organist’s cack-handed stumble through ‘Amazing Grace’ during a funeral. But we still have a lot to learn from other cultures

Mexicans visit the graves of their loved ones and set little altars in their honour on the Day of the Dead (EPA)

Christmas is unmistakably coming, and adverts are filling children’s heads up with gleeful anticipation of owning more stuff and eating anything spiced-fruit-filled. If you have already had quite enough of unbridled joy thank-you-very-much, then you’re in for a thoroughly sobering treat, because we need to talk about grief.

Last Friday, the musician Stephen Manderson – better known as Professor Green – started a petition to ask the government to create a National Grief Awareness Day. The petition is backed by Cruse Bereavement Care, a national charity that “offers support, advice and information to children, young people and adults when someone dies and works to enhance society’s care of bereaved people”, and at the time of writing it is very much in need of signatures.

Grief and mourning in this country are often treated as very private things, perhaps largely because death itself is treated as a very private thing. On a day-to-day basis, we don’t live with an awareness of the grief that people all around us are carrying, so when someone that we care about suffers a loss, we can find ourselves straining to hit the right emotional notes even as we frantically scramble to remind ourselves how the old song goes. When that loss becomes old news, it can feel almost intrusive to check how they are, or perhaps we don’t ask for fear of rocking the boat. In the worst cases of stiff upper lip, we might even avoid the grieving friend or acquaintance through sheer awkwardness.

There are, of course, other ways to deal with grief. While we were preparing to celebrate Halloween a month ago, Mexico was gearing up for its annual Día de Muertos (“Day of the Dead”) – a brightly coloured and often raucous celebration of lost loved ones. Some people sleep in graveyards. Others dress themselves up as the deceased, or write irreverent epitaphs for the living. There are parades. There’s dancing. Tequila may or may not be involved.

In my birth-country, Iran, the close family of someone who’s died will receive visits from friends, extended family, and mere acquaintances in the days after the death, to participate in the Azadari, or collective grieving ritual. Guests might choose to sit quietly in a circle, weep gently, or wail from the depths of their very souls, leaving the family free to make endless tea as they whisper in the kitchen:

“Do you know that man in the beige suit?”

“No. Do you?”

“No. Here – give him some halva.”

Conversation about the dead is encouraged, however much time has passed. Stories are shared without anyone glancing down to nod earnestly at their shoes.

This may sound quite alien to those who prefer to act out their love and care for the immediate family of the deceased by providing them with a sort of selfless, phlegmatic stability, but from another perspective it allows those closest to the loss to act as the comforter, not just the comforted, allowing them some time to process the shock and loss by offering hospitality to passing men in beige suits and others who drop by to pay their respects. After the immediate funerary rites have passed, some deeply affected mourners will wear black for as long as a year and shun all celebratory events – perhaps one of the many reasons why I can’t seem to land a gig there.

Now, you might not like the sound of any of that. There’s always a temptation to assume that people elsewhere in the world “do ritual” better than we do, but of course all mourning practices are woven into a broader cultural tapestry and there’s no guarantee that they could be tacked onto our own very different social fabric in a way that was helpful or satisfactory. Besides which, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the very British funeral tradition of tearfully stifling a giggle at the local church organist’s cack-handed stumble through Amazing Grace. We don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

However, the fact remains that grieving takes time – certainly a good deal longer than most of us can take off work. While the immediate shock of the loss will fade, the emotions, the grief itself, will come and go over a lifetime. Whatever the reason, we don’t always allow people the opportunity to say, “I still miss them” or “I’m still not OK” even years on, without them feeling like they’re imposing or being terribly gauche. There isn’t a framework to keep telling stories about the dead, to smile and laugh and remember them joyfully. Many of us desperately need that, however bittersweet it may be.

I’d like to finish by quoting Nick Cave, writing beautifully about the tragic death of his 15-year-old son, Arthur: “It seems to me that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.”

Friends, we’re not about to stop loving, and although it’s heartbreaking, we’re not about to stop dying either, so we need to give ourselves and each other the best possible chance to grieve our losses well.

An officially designated day for talking about grief won’t take away the pain of losing someone we love – of course it won’t – but it could make many people feel less alone in that experience. It may also give life to the conversation about how we approach death and whether that approach is working for all of us.

With many about to spend their first Christmas without a beloved friend or relative, that might be among the most meaningful presents you could give or receive.