Has America lost its ability to grieve?

From Annunciation Catholic Church to Utah Valley University, tragedies have unfolded before us in the recent gruesome deaths of children and political activist, Charlie Kirk.

However, the reaction to these deaths has been just as tragic.

Once, grief had a rhythm. Humanity knew how to move through loss: to mark it with ritual, to honor it with respect, to wrestle with meaning in reckoning, and to transform it through repair. That rhythm has anchored communities through centuries of tragedy and change. 

But, somewhere along the way, America lost its ability to grieve.

The silence we no longer keep, the pauses we no longer honor, the sacred spaces we no longer create. 

And when the rhythm disappeared, so did our humanity. Here’s how we lost it.

The Rhythm of Grief (and How We Lost It)

1. Ritual.

Ritual was how we slowed down and remembered what was sacred. In Jewish tradition, families sit shiva for seven days. In Hindu practice, mourning lasts eleven to thirteen. In Scripture, when Aaron died, the people of Israel grieved for thirty days. When Moses passed, the nation did the same. Entire societies stopped to honor life and death.

Today, ritual has been stripped bare. Hashtags and headlines arrive within minutes. Candlelight vigils are quickly overshadowed by news alerts and scrolling feeds. What once held weeks of reverence has been reduced to minutes of reaction. 

We have traded thirty days of stillness for thirty minutes of distraction.

2. Respect.

Respect is the pause that allows grief to breathe. It is the silence before decisions, the collective acknowledgment that a life mattered. In Islam, mourning can extend forty days. In parts of Asia, ceremonies unfold across weeks. Respect creates room for memory and meaning to settle.

In America, we allow three days. A brief bereavement leave, then the quiet is broken by the demands of capitalism. As if three days could carry the weight of losing a parent, a spouse, or a child.

If we cannot respect grief for those we love most, how will we ever respect it for strangers?

3. Reckoning.

Reckoning is the wrestling. It is the space where anger, sadness, confusion, and silence live side by side. It is not clean and it is not fast, but it is necessary.

Instead, we have replaced reckoning with reaction. 

When someone dies—whether it is Charlie Kirk, a victim of police violence, a woman silenced after assault, a veteran left on the streets, students praying in a church, or a homeless neighbor who passes unnoticed—the responses are predictable.

One side erupts in rage.

The middle offers “thoughts and prayers.”

The other side shrugs with apathy, bitterness, or entitlement, saying they deserved it.

What is missing is empathy.

These issues are not separate threads; they are strands of the same unraveling fabric. Whether it is violence, injustice, neglect, or indifference, the heart of the matter is the same: we have forgotten how to see one another as human.

And because we no longer reckon, we confuse meaning with partisanship. 

We search for it in constitutional rights and political scaffolding such as gun laws, free speech, policing. Those debates matter, but they are not meaning. 

Meaning asks something deeper: what does this reveal about us? What does it say about our humanity?

4. Repair.

Repair is action born of reverence. It is what rises when grief is honored fully.

After 9/11, before division took over, we saw a glimpse of repair—candlelight vigils, makeshift memorials, strangers standing shoulder to shoulder in unity. Mothers Against Drunk Driving grew out of personal grief, transforming tragedy into cultural change. After the Holocaust, the phrase “Never Again” became more than words. It became a vow carried into education, memorials, and conscience itself.

Repair is possible, but only when the first three steps have been honored. Without ritual, respect, and reckoning, repair collapses under its own weight. What remains is hollow: polarization instead of healing, statements instead of substance.

How Media Warps Our Grief

Part of why this rhythm has unraveled is that grief does not serve the machine of modern media. Outrage does. Outrage keeps us watching, scrolling, and consuming.

And here is what many overlook: Fox and CNN may appear opposites, but many of their largest institutional shareholders overlap. Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street hold significant stakes in both. Vanguard is one of the largest shareholders in both Fox and CNN’s parent company. BlackRock and State Street follow closely behind.

Their reach extends into nearly every part of daily life. 

They hold shares in Coca-Cola and Pepsi, profiting no matter which label you choose. They are invested in Meta, which means they benefit every time you stay online a little longer. They hold stock in Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble, profiting when insecurity drives us toward the mirror. They are among the top investors in JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup, profiting when debt weighs heavy. They hold Disney, Comcast, and Paramount, profiting when screens keep us transfixed. And of course, they are among the largest shareholders in Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla—companies that shape how we live, work, and consume each day.

This is not conspiracy. It is fiduciary responsibility. Public companies are required to maximize profits for shareholders, and most of us are shareholders without realizing it. Retirement accounts, pensions, and index funds tie our futures to these same firms.

So, the question is not whether they profit, but how.

What happens if they cannot deliver returns? What happens when quarterly earnings fall short and pensions hang in the balance? They turn to the currencies that never run out: fear, outrage, distraction. 

Because logic makes us think, emotion moves us to act. And of all emotions, anger and fear are the fastest and most powerful mobilizers.

The media knows this and now you do too.

As long as we remain outraged, profits will continue to grow.

Why This Matters

This is not about politics, culture wars, religion or even race—though each of those expose some of our deepest fractures.

This is about grief – and more specifically, soul.

We have built a nation on structure—on laws, rights, systems—but in the process, we have neglected the humanity. Without ritual, respect, and reckoning, there can be no true repair.

Until we reclaim the rhythm of grief, mourning will continue to be replaced by outrage, and healing will continue to be replaced by polarization.

If we cannot grieve the ones we love, how will we ever grieve the stranger?

And if we cannot grieve the stranger, how will we ever reclaim the soul of our nation?

If this stirs something within you, please follow me on LinkedIn. I share often about family legacies, inheritance and the transfer of wealth between generations — not from outrage, but from reverence.