Memories are important in continuing bonds. If someone wants to continue a relationship with the dead, they must have memories. While mourning, people may like or dislike items that belong to the person who died. This is because the items can make people emotional.

Material objects hold memories and can be anything including items, spaces, and words. They can show love and caring but also cause problems in grieving. In the section about continuing bonds, we talked about ‘linking objects’ which can cause problems in grieving. These are usually items showing that the mourner believes the dead will return and need their things. People must recognize their loved one is dead to move forward in grieving – they must experience internal bonds, not external.

People worry that when they die, they will disappear entirely. Holding onto items and memories can promise continued life. The things that continue their memories can be a number of items.

There are ties between personhood and material items. People are afraid they will disappear when they die, but people who live after them use memories, objects, and other items to remember them. This makes the dead present again. They can be represented by items like jewelry, pictures, or crematorium tags.

When people die, their loved ones may try to ‘find’ them by using objects or going to places that help them remember. This time can be personal and unique. As time goes by, internal memories fade, however, and external memories become more important.

Rituals like funerals or therapy help connect the living and the dead. They end up being more about life than death. They help with social support for the griever and can be shown to be successful if continued bonds arise from them. Rituals and objects are powerful and allow people to remember their loved ones even after death.

Spaces and places can also be material memories. There are three places where the dead ‘live’: deathscapes like cemeteries, embodied-psychological places like wind telephones, and nonmaterial places like the Internet. Places can be very special to the griever because of previous visits with the dead or other reasons. These memories can be positive or negative.

After death, there is a separation of the living and the dead through places like cemeteries. Some people may not want to go to those places because they fear death. These places may also be used so much for grieving that they become objects of grief rather than positive memorial places.

Words can be material memories too. They are needed to ‘transfer’ the dead from living to a memorial object. Oral and written communications are used in stories to remember the dead. Written communication left over from when the person was alive is special because it touched their hands. Any communication can help anchor people after a death. After-death communication can also be open-ended, and people can use prayer, discussion, writing letters to the dead, using a wind telephone, or writing on social media to keep lines open.