At the February 2026 Equity in Grief Festival the young people gave honesty, humour, and wisdom. They talked about kitchens gone quiet, about matriarchs who had held whole families together, about friends lost far too soon, and about the stubborn way joy keeps showing up even in grief. Here is some of what they shared that we hope will reach others carrying the same losses.

The elders who carried worlds

They told us that when an active, much-loved grandparent dies, a family loses far more than a person. It loses a library of recipes and lessons that were never written down. The dialect, the phrases, the jokes, the stories of a country left behind, of childhoods, travels and whole lives lived somewhere else before they came to the UK.

Grandparents, and their friends provide an intergenerational view of life, a sense of where they came from, and the ability to be loved by someone with time to spare and a willingness to share. The food, the culinary delights, the joy of a grandparent sharing a dish and a memory, but when that generation goes, the loss is both personal and cultural. A whole way of belonging just slips away.

Some of the most powerful reflections were about the women who often hold families together. Young people spoke about how much unseen work a matriarch does to keep everyone connected, and how when she dies that unity can begin to dissolve. That unravelling is its own form of grief layered on top of losing the person herself. It is a sadness compounded as they described it, by watching the family change shape.

For many, this kind of loss arrived suddenly, and they were honest about how hard that was. The shock, the disorientation, and the challenge of grieving something enormous with no warning.

Grief doesn’t have one face

One of the clearest messages from young people was that grief is not only sadness and it is not only tears. It shows up in a hundred different ways and crucially, grieving does not mean permanently closing the door on joy. They spoke about the value of laughter in grief and how humour can sit right alongside heartbreak, and how being able to laugh again is not a betrayal of the person you’ve lost but part of how you carry your memories of them.

They were also honest that people in the same family grieve differently, and that those differences can clash. One person needs to talk, another goes silent, one wants everyone gathered close, another needs to be alone. The ways we soothe ourselves in the rawest moments also vary enormously and recognising that rather than judging it can spare families a great deal of extra pain.

Culture shapes how we mourn, and young people spoke thoughtfully about the differences. In some cultures, death is talked about openly and often in others a stiff upper lip holds sway and feelings stay unspoken. Some traditions invite the bereaved to take part in preparing the body of the person who has died which is far from frightening and can be a source of comfort and closure. In others, that same practice would be unthinkable.

These differences matter for equity. Young people pointed out that funerals in some cultures involve lengthy rituals, and that the standard amount of time allocated by employers, by services, by systems simply doesn’t accommodate them. Families from those traditions can end up being rushed and forced to choose between their culture and their work obligations. Honouring grief means making room for the many shapes that it takes.

For a generation that has grown up online, social media came up as a genuine source of support. Young people described it as a place to find community when the people around them didn’t understand, to connect with others going through the same thing, and to feel less alone in the middle of the night. Used well, they said, it can be a lifeline, a sort of online community that holds them when offline support is not available.

Some of the hardest conversations were about young people losing peers to violence at the hands of other young people. Alongside the grief comes an added weight of the pull to “do something,” the pressure of revenge, the sense that some sort of action is expected. Young people spoke about how vital peer support and specifically, the value of peer mentors who understand the codes around these situations, who can de-escalate, and who can help grieving young people find other outlets for what they’re carrying. Sometimes the person best placed to reach someone in that moment is another young person who has walked a similar road.

Talking to children about death

Parents in the group raised the question on how do you help a young child through loss when you don’t have a big community around you to lean on? Their reflections were striking. They felt that children are often far more resilient than adults expect and one of the most important things adults can do is avoid projecting their own fears, and their own struggle to cope, onto the child. Being open about feelings, rather than hiding them away gives children permission to feel their own. Grief handled honestly in front of a child teaches them something they’ll keep for life which is that grief is survivable.

Running through the whole conversation was a plea against bottling grief up because it can take a serious toll on mental health and wellbeing and since death is the one certainty for all of us, finding healthy ways to express loss matters enormously. They talked about the wisdom of speaking about it before it arrives and normalising conversations about death by telling our loved ones what we want so our wishes are known.

There was admiration for the pragmatism many older people have about death and that matter-of-factness their children and grandchildren often don’t share. Perhaps, some suggested, the answer is to start earlier to make conversations about loss and bereavement woven into education from a young age, so death is less of a shock when it inevitably comes.

Passing it on

One thread tied everything together which is that as elders pass on or become unable to take part in the community funerals and rituals they once led, something vital is at risk of being lost. Not just the person but the wisdom they shared on how to mourn, how to gather, how to send someone off well. The young people were clear that the responsibility now rests with those who still hold that knowledge to pass it on.

So much of grief is about the recipes, the stories, the languages, the rituals, the love. When we lose the people who carried them, we then become the carriers and in choosing to pass those things on such as to cook the dish, tell the story, teach the ritual, say the words we keep our people, and our cultures, alive.

With thanks to the young people who shared these reflections so generously. We’re grateful, and we’re listening.