On Sunday, Mother’s Day will honor the women who undertake the profound work of motherhood. For most, it’s a day of gratitude and celebration. But there are millions of others for whom the day is something different: a harrowing reminder of a beloved person they’ve lost.

On February 16, 2024, journalist Danielle Crittenden lost her 32-year-old daughter, Miranda. Five years prior, Miranda had a rare brain tumor successfully removed. But on that night, a small miscalculation with her hormone medication killed her suddenly, in her sleep, at her Brooklyn apartment.

The tragedy, Danielle writes in her new memoir, Dispatches from Grief, catapulted her into an “alternate universe” of despair and confusion—until slowly, painstakingly, she began to come out the other side. Today, we’re honored to publish an excerpt from the book, in which Danielle describes the unusual way that journey began: via her daughter’s reburial. —The Editors

One year after Miranda died, our family prepared for the Jewish tradition of the unveiling.

Jewish custom obligates that bodies be buried immediately after death. But after the funeral, we wait for a year until the memorial stone is revealed: a merciful acknowledgment that mourners need a full cycle of seasons before facing granite finality. When the gravesite is ready, mourners gather again. A sheet covers the headstone. The rabbi pulls it away—literally unveiling the new marker. The last earthly duty to our dead is complete.

Some grieving parents find purpose in organizing memorial causes for their late children: marathons, charities, scholarships. I understand the impulse. You want your child’s life to have meaning beyond your own loss. Maybe then the death wasn’t so pointless. Your family’s tragedy might even save others. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) began exactly this way, after 13-year-old Cari Lightner was killed in 1980.

But what if your child just. . . dies? A car accident. An overdose. Or, in Miranda’s case, an underdose. No one marches for the randomly unlucky.

That does not, however, preclude our ability to recognize our dead with something meaningful and enduring.