A Buddhist Memorial Service: Making Time to Remember Years Later
It is Buddhist practice to hold a memorial service for loved ones every set number of years after their death.
Recently, my family and I gathered for a memorial service for not just one family member but 3: my grandpa, grandma, and mom. My grandpa died 14 years ago, my grandma 6 years ago, and my mom 5 years ago. Traditionally, these services consist of chanting, incense offering, and a message by the reverend. The service functions as a time for you to meditate on the memories of the one who died and to recognize the impermanence of our own lives. When the service ends, we all have lunch together to continue to share stories.
However, this memorial service for my family was a little different.
My aunt asked everyone who was coming to the service ahead-of-time to write out a favorite memory or story about my grandpa, grandma, or mom. One-by-one my aunt received email after email of unique stories and memories from all the people that had loved my family.
On the day of the service, her and I stood up front and read what everyone had written. Hearing those stories sparked so many other memories that we hadn’t remembered for a long time. There were even stories that we had never heard before, like how my grandpa asked my brother to make coffee and instead of using the coffee-measuring spoon, my brother used a measuring cup. Lots of the stories had us laughing really hard and others made us miss them all over again.
It felt good to hear those stories during the service. It was nice to see my grandma’s youngest sister laughing as she remembered the quirky things my grandma did. It was moving to see the eyes of my dad and my mom’s sister get teary as they heard the many stories about my mom.
What was significant about this event is simply the fact that we got together to talk about my grandparents and my mom. Listening to the stories brought me comfort because it showed me that my grandparents and my mom were not forgotten and others still missed them too.
Our mortuary talks a lot about the significance of ceremony and the healing moments that take place when family and friends come together when someone has died. Hearing those stories during the service was something our family needed. It was touching to see that people took time out of their schedules to support us and to keep the spirit of my grandparents and mom alive.
It’s never too late to have a memorial service for the ones we love and I encourage you to have family and friends gather together again and remember. It can be as simple as getting together over a meal but to know for that event everyone is given the opportunity to express their loss will continue to heal hearts.
Dr. William Hoy says it best, “A nation that does not honor its dead will ultimately lose its reverence for life. If the dead do not matter, it will not be long until the living do not matter either.”
Continuing to come together years later, or decades later, to remember and celebrate loved ones can be just as, or even more, meaningful for family and friends to experience.
|| what do you think?
What things do you do to remember a loved one?
Have you ever wanted to hold a service like this but felt held back?
How does your family take time to remember your loved ones?
41 Comments
Every anniversary of my father and uncles death I let go of red balloons with a little message written on them. This is something I heard from a song and have religiously done this every year since their death. I love the idea of having another memorial service years later. There are so many stories left to hear! And it’s a good reason for everyone to get together and remember their loved ones. My mom and I constantly talk about him to keep his spirit alive. Its now not so painful but brings joy to us both. Thanks for the great blog Lauren.
XOXO,
Erin
That is so great to hear that you do that for your dad and uncle every year!
XOXO,
Lauren
I remember my wife Renee by eating a western bacon cheeseburger , which was Renee’s favorite at the cemetery on July 13 this was not only the day she died but also our anniversary so it serves as a dual purpose one to remember and one to think what we may have done to celebrate our anniversary would we have gone away or just a nice quiet dinner. We would have been married for 28 years this year so maybe I will have a little service in addition to my western bacon cheeseburger. Thanks for the ideas to help keep the memories alive.
Sincerely , Joe Lavoie
Thanks for sharing Joe! You can celebrate this year with the double western bacon cheeseburger!
Hey Lauren, That is such a cool thing you and your family do! I think that would be great for every family! It seems like a lot of the times, you see people at the funeral when you’re so out of it you might not even remember what went on or was said that years after things might be a lot clearer. I think those stories shared would be very healing, and even though no one forgets about the person who died I think sometimes there is a not wanting to talk about them anymore to avoid making anyone sad. To hear the memories and know that the person is still alive in other peoples’ hearts as well must be very beneficial to everyone involved.
That is so true that families are in a haze during the funeral service. Getting together a year or two later is enough time that has passed where one could soak in and appreciate the memories.
Dear Lauren, this is such a touching piece- thank you for sharing this practice with us! I think everyone should do something like this, regardless of culture or religion & I absolutely love the example that this Buddhist practice sets. We all need to follow it. I truly believe that no one truly dies until they are forgotten. This is an amazing way to ensure that our loved ones live on. Thank you so much! Love, Carrie
Thank you Carrie! Telling stories are the best way to keep them in our hearts and mind.
Lauren,
I love this tradition that your family has to honor your loved ones recurrently. The most significant losses for me have been my father and my grandmother, my mom’s mother who passed in 1987. They are significant for two reasons….my father took his life and therefore, with this being such a tabu subject in 1973,nobody ever talked to me about him again, basically ever. He just vanished from the face of the earth. My grandma on the other hand is very much alive in our memories. There is not a time that my mom, aunt, cousins and I are together that a story of her is not shared. I think the latter is the better way to grieve, of course. I love that you have shared this sacred tradition with us.
XOXO,
Lori
Lori, thank you for sharing that. I cannot imagine the pain of losing a dad and not being able to talk about him. I glad that your experience with the loss of your grandma is the opposite.
XOXO,
Lauren