While no one can tell you the right way to remember your loved one, here are a few questions you can ask to guide you in finding the perfect way to remember and honor someone’s life:
What did they love?
Something they cared about or enjoyed being part, such as a group, charity.
What things did they do?
Perhaps they were involved in some charities, playing sports, activist, travelling, enjoyed nature.
Finding a way to remember based on something your loved one found meaningful can be a great fit.
What is a special memory you share?
Small moments of joy can provide clarity around the perfect way to remember a loved one.
Find an everyday item that reminds you of your loved one. Maybe it’s an item your loved one had in their home. Or something they gave you a long time ago. Whatever it is, having items to remember them by can help bring back fond memories.
What do others remember?
One of the best ways to remember a loved one is to talk to others that knew them, were close to them and care for them. Sharing stories or remembering moments that make you smile or make you cry can be helpful and good for the soul. Talking to others that loved and miss the person is a great way to know that you aren’t alone in your grief. People grieve in different ways and at different times. Coming from a family of 5 children and having all lived away from each other for so many years we all approached the death of my parents differently. Sometimes it can bring people closer together but it can also have the opposite affect.
Here are some ways regular people/communities have found ways to immortalize their loved ones quietly or publicly:
1 Planting a remembrance tree or plant – for life to continue to grow. I was given a hydrangea bush by a friend when my mother passed away and I always find it a comfort to see it growing in the garden.
2. Name a star – to look up at night and see them in the heavens above can also be comforting.
3. A concert, picnic, fireworks or some kind of community celebration.
4. Donate a bench in a place like a park or street with the deceased name on it – I met a woman in Amsterdam, who had a bench seat in front of her ground floor apartment for weary tourists to rest on, because her deceased husband always sat there to read a newspaper. She had a sign to explain it.
5. Pay for a named theater seat – for a theater lover perhaps – I have sat in one with a person’s name on a plaque, on the back
6. Write and publish an autobiography or biography – more below.
7. Paint a portrait – In the past rich people could commission portraits, sculptures to immortalize themselves and family members, but now with developments in photography and the internet many people can easily have family portraits done at moderate prices.
8. Start a charity or advocacy movement – for example Susan B. Komen, Lou Gehrig’s disease. So many participate in charity events all over the world and have never known the person that it’s named after. To start and make the endeavor sustainable would require a strong commitment, investment of time, and energy
9. Set up a fundraiser in their name – locally named 5K runs are popular that help raise funds for charities such as March of Dimes, or scholarships relevant to the deceased person. It does however require a strong commitment. time, energy and some great community volunteer support.
10. Create a scholarship in their name – especially for high school students who are going into further education. This can relate to interests such as sport, music, academic scholarships, that are funded annually by the family.
11. Get a portrait or name of the loved one tattooed on their skin
12. Donate organs – many remain anonymous but some families of deceased donors create a relationship with the recipients.
13. Create a collage blanket. A quilt can be made from pieces of their clothing to represent different parts of their life. There are companies that will create it from T-shirts too.
14. Many of us pass on our jewelry, furniture and possessions from generation to generation as family heirlooms
15. Creating a law. In fact, as sad as it may be, the absence of a loved one can also lead one to do things for the greater good of mankind by focusing on using their tragedy to mobilize awareness and create laws. For example, in New Jersey, Meghan’s Law was created to let communities know if convicted pedophiles or sexual predators live in their neighborhood or near schools after a teenager – called Meghan, was abducted and killed by a neighbor. As tragic as it was, it has gone on to save innocent lives and probably consoles the family to know the loss of their beautiful child was not for nothing.
17. Presentations or assemblies at institutes and events. Parents of children who suffered from being bullied at school with sometimes tragic consequences have also made efforts to make the public aware and try to change policies in education, laws and social media.
But not ibiographer.com It offers a free and private way to preserve and write your memories of loved ones, living or deceased.
iBiographer can be a great tool to immortalize yourself, and love ones. Think how good it would be to write your memories and upload many photos, videos, documents like the family recipes, certificates and accomplishments that show all the things they did in their life whether extraordinary or not.
After writing it, you could print it out (without videos and music) to create a book for free or even send it to be published into a hardback. Putting together the life story of someone you treasure can be a great way to preserve their memory.
Also, it may be good to share your wishes on how you would like to be memorialized and know the wishes of your loved one. Even though, remembering a loved one is for the living, we all have thoughts and preferences about how we want to be remembered. It can be a difficult topic for some people to talk about with loved ones and some people never do. Some have it all organized so that it is done the way they want and this can also takes the pressure off the family at such a sad time.
You will find iBiographer is a great place to write your memories and make yourself and family members to become immortalized on the internet. If you want to make sure it is written correctly then who better to write than you as no-one knows you better than you.
Given all the mentioned options doing it on ibiographer.com is an easy & a free way to go.
Don’t have the time? Do one page just to have something written down for everyone to read and remember.
So, tell me – have you immortalized anyone? Do you have a suggestion? What would you want for yourself or do for your loved ones?