I just finished writing my mother’s obituary. It’s the third obituary I’ve written in the past 18 months, following the one I wrote for my sister in January 2024 and the one I wrote for my dad in May 2024. It has been, to put it mildly, an emotionally challenging year and a half, providing me with an unbidden and unwelcome education in bereavement.

During the eight years I have been writing for Psychology Today, I have written numerous posts on nostalgia and the many wellness benefits offered by remembering the past. And my interest in nostalgia is by no means a purely scholarly one. Being a temperamentally nostalgia-prone individual, I can personally attest to the validity of studies showing that nostalgia can boost creativity, alleviate loneliness and boredom, enhance feelings........

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