How do you memorialize a person? Especially someone you didn't know well?
This is the question I'm pondering these days. It has been at the back of my mind for several months now, as I've been planning a memorial service for Emily Cardwell, but it's really coming to the fore now.
The memorial is this Sunday, at 2:30 PM, at the Uisge Ban Falls trailhead and parking lot. In some ways the Memorial has really planned itself, as people have given willingly of time and ideas, and luckily what to do at a memorial for a girl who was a gardener is nice and easy, and lovely as well: plant some trees. Give away some seeds. Be outside in nature.
All the same, I wrestle with this. I want to do five million wonderful things in this person's memory, which isn't actually possible! So I need to keep reminding myself to keep it simple. We honor her memory by simply gathering, by saying the words we will say. It doesn't have to be an over-the-top spectacle to be sufficient. In fact, maybe I'll make this my motto: "Just enough is plenty." (It's the title of a book my family loved when I was a child.)
I'll definitely write an update next week about how the memorial went. In the meantime, if you'd like to leave a comment, I'd love to know about a memorial service you went to that really touched you, or about some neat idea you've had to memorialize someone.
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the human behind the bean
I'm a 27 year old Canadian woman. I grew up on Cape Breton Island, although my parents and their families are from Quebec and Ohio. Currently I live in Cape Breton, in a small town by the Bras D'Or Lake.
I can make a good soup and tie my own shoes. I've worked as a nanny, a potter's assistant, a shop clerk, and a janitor. I've also worked in a library, and taught computers to seniors. I've travelled to Australia and New Zealand and across Canada by train. I spent two and a half years in university before I left. I like the way the air smells in the Fall.
Since 2002 - this is my blog, a place for me to write about life, what I experience, to share my photography and my writing. I'm glad you're here!
I can make a good soup and tie my own shoes. I've worked as a nanny, a potter's assistant, a shop clerk, and a janitor. I've also worked in a library, and taught computers to seniors. I've travelled to Australia and New Zealand and across Canada by train. I spent two and a half years in university before I left. I like the way the air smells in the Fall.
Since 2002 - this is my blog, a place for me to write about life, what I experience, to share my photography and my writing. I'm glad you're here!
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