The Healing Journey

October 26, 2025

The following is an excerpt from a piece by Father Charles T. Rubey titled “Navigating Grief: Halloween’s Impact on Survivors.” Father Rubey is the Founder and Director of Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide (LOSS) a non-denominational program offered by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Many years ago, I was going to visit a family who had just lost one of their daughters to AIDS. I was with the young woman the night that she died and had seen her struggle. I was going to her parents’ house to assist them in the planning of the funeral.

It was the middle of October when her death occurred, and so many people were getting their Halloween decorations in place. As I was pulling up to her parents’ home, I noticed the people across the street were assembling a graveyard as part of their Halloween decor. I am quite sure that they knew about the situation across the street from them, but they were getting their graveyard in place.

I wanted to tell them that I thought their decorations were in poor taste in light of what had just happened to their neighbors. I didn’t say anything, but that scene made an impression on me. It made me realize that when tragedy strikes a family, it does not have the same impact on the world around that family. The world around them experiences life as usual. People continue to live their lives without fully recognizing the impact that some of their actions can have on grieving people. I don’t think these people were cruel or uncaring; they just do not realize how their actions or words can further hurt people who are already hurting….

When survivors are exposed to a lighthearted portrayal of death, it can stir up a lot of emotions. For people who are surviving the tragic death of a loved one from suicide, there is absolutely no lightheartedness to the event, and it can anger survivors to have death portrayed in such a fashion.

I bring this up to prepare survivors for the season of Halloween. I don’t think that people mean to be insensitive or uncaring, but I do think that people should be educated as to what is a proper decoration and what could be interpreted as something offensive. The world should be educated and made more sensitive about the feelings of people who are hurting, for whom there is no humor in a lighthearted portrayal of death.

Father Rubey’s piece was originally published in October 2008, in Catholic Charities LOSS Program Obelisk Newsletter.

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