- Use your mother's china or glassware for special meals.
- Remember your parent's death(s) on All Saint's Day (November 1) of All Soul's Day (November 2).
- Pass on one of your mother's recipes. You can contribute a recipe to Morsels and Memories, the official cookbook of the Association of Death Education and Counseling.
- Do a mitzvah, or a good deed, in honor of your mother.
- Reset some of your mother's old jewelry; thus, a diamond ring could become earrings or a brooch ( A daughter retained her mother's diamond at the time of mother's death death 30 years ago. It was reset and given to a granddaughter on her 16th birthday. The two had never met!)
- Plant a tree or bush in honor of your parents. Watch it grow.
- Donate flowers in honor of your mother to a place of worship on a Sunday nearest her birthday, anniversary or passing day.
- Make a donation to your mother's alma mater.
- Donate money to an organization seeking a cure for the disease that claimed your parent. Remember it does not have to be a large donation.
- Celebrate Memorial Day. For too many this is merely the day of summer rather than a day to remember our loved ones (even if you celebrated Mother's Day earlier in the month)
- Create something of beauty in honor of your mother. Use some of her clothes to make a beautiful quilt. Others may take their gowns and robes to make stuffed bears for family members.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Parent Loss: Ideas for Remembrance
Being an adult child of a deceased parent or parents can bring many grief reactions especially around significant remembrance days. Rituals assist in two major dimensions of human life-continuity and change. In other words, rituals need to reflect the fact that times and lives change, as well as preserve what remains meaningful. (Rituals for Our Times). Here are a few possibilities for remembering our mother and/or father *(taken from Grieving the Death of a Mother by Harold Ivan Smith):
