Usually, Hmong funerals last several days and our whole family comes together for it. It's a Hmong tradition t... — Sunisa Lee

Usually, Hmong funerals last several days and our whole family comes together for it. It's a Hmong tradition to fold thousands of little paper boats with silver or gold paper that represent money the person could take into the afterlife, but we couldn't do that because of the coronavirus.

Author: Sunisa Lee

Insight: There's something sobering about watching a global crisis strip away the rituals that hold families together. Sunisa Lee's observation about missing the paper boat folding at her Hmong funeral highlights something we all felt during lockdowns, but rarely name so directly: grief doesn't just happen to us individually. It happens through tradition, through the hands of people gathering, through small repetitive acts that say "we remember together." The paper boats are interesting because they're not ornamental—they're functional within a belief system, a way of showing love and provision even in absence. But they're also something more practical: they give grieving hands something to do. Folding thousands of boats as a family isn't just ceremonial; it's meditation, conversation starter, and collective work all at once. When that's taken away, you don't just lose a ritual. You lose the scaffolding that helps you process loss itself. This reveals something about why traditions matter beyond nostalgia. They're not quaint ornaments we attach to major life events—they're actually how cultures teach people to move through pain together. When a virus forces us to grieve alone or with only a screen between us, we realize how much of our emotional resilience comes not from individual strength, but from standing beside others doing something meaningful, even something as simple as folding paper.