I wrote this matter-of-fact title as a reflection. A latterly response to a past significant bereavement.
It has until now, remained penned, but undeveloped. Stated, but unexplored. Before revisiting it now, it felt less a contemplation, more an obvious fact of life. What more was there to say about it? That was that.
At the time, the observation that prompted me to write it was made in the space that followed the rituals and gatherings, practically arranged and participated in. Life carried on. But not as with that person in it.
Some arrangements with sole purpose to meet the person’s living needs or interests, were unequivocally abandoned or terminated. True of impersonal relationships such as with the phone contract provider. And of personal ones alike, such as the theatre outing the following week.
Established group connections presented a pragmatic dilemma – whether or not things could feasibly continue without them, or if another could step in.
Grief, communal and personal, stirred many emotions and ways of coping. I was touched by the many people, close to the departed but previously unknown to me – who wanted to stay in touch.
I felt complicit in the mutual unspoken knowing that their invitations and my pull to accept, came imbued with a desire to cling to the person we had both lost.
The deceased was a social butterfly and relationally influential. Geography and the sheer number of requests alone would have made meaningful connection feel impossible. The generational and lifestyle disparities on top – impractical.
I briefly took on too much psychological responsibility for the groups that would now be un-chaired, gatherings unconfirmed or cancelled. I worried people would drift apart now the person that brought them together had gone.
It later struck me that it was okay to reject this role. I could never be practically superimposed into, or administrate from afar, another’s (lost) life. Perhaps in some cases, especially with the ‘uniting’ type of personality, they are simply like the glue that holds their group connections together.
Once gone, what happens next is the concern and choice of the group members that remain.
Each human, and what they bring to a group is particular and unique. Life and people adjust to absence. Space may or may not be filled or adapted due to many factors. Change is inevitable.
I revisited these ideas due to experiencing further loss and change but this time organisationally. Similarly to my personal loss, I have observed and been complicit in collective desires to maintain cultural and structural homeostasis, at odds with the loss of those who positively influenced the group.
Reflecting back on the relational reverberations of my previous personal loss, I’ve since been wondering about the qualities of people who are successful ‘group adhesives’.
The leaders (social, organisational or societal) that inspire me and in turn, inspire my respect of them, are through what thinkers have called their ability to create an ‘egregore’ (EH-GRUH-GOR). The way I am using it here describes a person’s innate ability, talent and skill with powerfully cultivating cultures in groups.
The egregores that stimulate me feel ethical, congruent, safe and kind enough and so effectively uniting – through the spirit of their leadership’s integrity in values and behaviour, towards meeting the group’s shared goal or task.
When people like this move on, we can naturally feel it deeply. Probably true of those occupying many past and present nurturing, pastoral, mentoring, and leading roles in our lives.
Connection, loss and change, is part of what makes relational life efficacious; for us to build, mobilise and achieve collectively and individually as humans. They also make life a pleasure and sometimes painful to navigate, and perhaps, humanity unique.
© 2026 Lorraine Welch. All rights reserved
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