Just had a wonderful weekend with a friend of over 50 years. We gathered for her mom's memorial service. My friend had printed the pages for a wonderful memory book for the members of her extended family. I had printed 2 additional sheets to insert. Constructing the books required a bit of changing from plan A to plan B, but we got a production line going and completed the project in time, and in good form. For my friend, the experience of choosing the photos and laying out the pages provided a welcome opportunity to look through family photos and to get a comforting sense of her mom's life in the process.
Compiling memorial books brings a sweet sense of closure that can be shared in a simple way and enjoyed by circles of family and friends. A small group or individuals can choose the photos most meaningful to them if you have a stack of inexpensive, small plastic photo albums along with boxes of copied photos, on a convenient table as they attend a wake, visiting hours, or a reception after a memorial service. This provides a thoughtful memorial without one person bearing the entire burden of creating all the books.
It was not a burden to create my friend's books, because she had all the parts on hand, all the materials we needed to finish the job, and an edition of only 7 books. The shared information and experience enriched and blessed my life, too.
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In this blog I referred to the "sweet sense of closure" that could be shared through memorial books. I've since heard quite a lot of discussion about the concept of closure as it applies to loss, and grieving for loved ones. And most of the thinking was that there is no such thing as closure in this type of loss. A agree. In my own experience, there is no "end" and no "fixing" of the situation when a loved one is lost. The value of memorial books, I think, is that they can give a positive structure in which to think about the loved one. That is more a "sweet sense of remembrance."
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