By Kelly Edmondson
In Black communities, we have always known how to show up for the funeral. The question we’re not asking loudly enough is: who shows up after?
I know this grief intimately. As a trauma nurse, a certified grief counselor, and a nurse executive, I have spent my career sitting with people in the hardest moments of their lives. And on Jan. 3, 2023, I became one of them, when I lost my son, Darius.
What I know clinically, I now know in my body.
Grief is not an event. It is a long, nonlinear process that our systems, our workplaces, and even our communities are not built to hold.
The Weight of Being Strong
Black Americans carry a particular burden when it comes to grief. Culturally, there is deep value placed on resilience, on holding it together, on not letting them see you break. That strength is real. It was earned through generations of surviving what should have broken anyone. But strength was never meant to be a substitute for healing.
Research shows that Black Americans are less likely to seek mental health support after loss, not because the need is not there, but because of stigma, distrust of systems that have historically failed us, financial barriers, and a cultural script that says grief should be private and brief. The church holds some of it. The family holds some of it. But the professional and systemic infrastructure to support sustained grief is largely absent.
And then Monday comes, and the bereaved person is expected to perform normally at work as if something fundamental has not changed inside them. Because in most workplaces, it’s a must.
The Policy Gap Is Personal
There is no federal law in the United States requiring bereavement leave, paid or unpaid. Only five states, California, Oregon, Illinois, Colorado, and Maryland, have codified any bereavement protections for private sector workers. For the rest of the country, what a grieving employee receives depends entirely at the discretion of their employer.
The typical employer offers three to five days. Three to five days isn’t support. It’s a deadline. Three to five days to bury someone you loved, manage their affairs, hold your family together, and return to full productivity. Research from Grieve Leave found that 94% of grieving employees report difficulty concentrating at work after loss, and 78% do not feel supported by their workplace. These numbers are not surprising to anyone who has lived it.
For Black employees, this gap is compounded. Grief in our community often carries additional weight: the specific trauma of sudden or violent loss, the administrative burden of settling an estate with limited legal and financial resources, the reality that
taking unpaid leave is not an option for many working families. The policy gap is not race-neutral and it becomes most visible in the workplace. It lands harder on people who already have less margin.Research published in the journal Sociology in 2024 documented what bereaved employees already know: that workplace bereavement policies are typically based on a linear model of grief that fails to account for its ongoing, nonlinear reality. They tend to measure loss by closeness of relationship, granting leave for a spouse but not a best friend of 20 years, a grandmother who raised you but not a mentor who shaped your career. Loss does not work that way.
Unaddressed grief does not stay home. It shows up in absenteeism, in reduced productivity, in turnover, and in the quiet erosion of workplace culture that no engagement survey fully captures.
What Sustained Support Actually Looks Like
Grief is not a two-week problem. For most people, the hardest moments come weeks and months after the loss, when the adrenaline fades, the community disperses, and the anniversaries and birthdays begin to surface. What bereaved employees need is not just time immediately after the death. They need a workplace culture that acknowledges grief as a long arc.
Employers who want to do better can start with a few concrete changes. Flexible and floating
bereavement leave, available across a defined window rather than only in the days immediately after death, allows employees to take time when they most need it. Broader definitions of family that include chosen family, extended kin, and non-legal relationships reflect the actual shape of Black family structures. Manager training that normalizes grief conversations, not as a one-time check-in but as an ongoing practice, builds the culture that policy alone cannot.Healthcare systems can do more as well. Grief-informed care means training physicians and care teams to recognize and address the psychological and physical toll of bereavement, not just in the immediate aftermath, but in the months and years that follow. Community institutions, including churches, nonprofits, and HBCUs, are already filling gaps that the formal system has left open. That work deserves recognition, resources, and partnerships rather than being treated as a last resort.
The Conversation We Need to Have
We are a community that knows how to love people in crisis. The repast, the prayer circle, the practical help when it is needed most, this is who we are. But love without infrastructure is not enough, and infrastructure without cultural honesty is incomplete.
We must talk about grief the way we talk about other public health issues, openly, collectively, and with the understanding that silence does not protect us. We must demand more from the
workplaces and healthcare systems that employ and serve us. And we must extend the same grace to grieving people that we show so beautifully in the days after loss, not just for the first week, but for the long road after.The funeral is not the finish line. It is the beginning of something that our communities, our employers, and our institutions need to be present for. The question is whether we’re willing to stay once the world moves on.
Kelly Edmondson, MSN, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, CGC, is a nurse executive, certified grief counselor, trauma nurse, and bereaved mother based in Orlando, Florida. She is the founder of Timely Presence, a bereavement support service built around meaningful connection during the first year of loss. Her work has been featured in TIME. Learn more at thetimelypresence.com.
RELATED CONTENT: Black-Owned Funeral Home Partners With Genealogist to Preserve Black History By Means of Funeral Programs