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Losing someone that you’re close to can be a heartbreaking and overwhelming experience. You may feel considerable loss, and grief can affect all of us in many different ways. But there are ways that you can honor the life of those that you love and care about after they’ve departed.
Here are 15 ways that you can remember your lost loved one.
1. Have a Bench Dedicated in Their Honor
Is there a favorite place that your loved one liked to spend their time? Maybe a view that they particularly enjoyed, or a park that they liked to walk through?
Everyone has their favorite places. If there are park benches anywhere around their favorite place, see whether you can have one devoted to them. Many park owners will allow plaques to be added to their benches.
2. Plant a Tree in Their Honor
Many people take comfort in the idea of the circle of life. The idea is that when one person dies, another is born. Planting a tree is representative that life goes on and new life will grow. You may not get your loved one back, but having a tree growing in a favorite spot will be something that will help you remember them.
Pick a tree that will flower. Then, every year when the tree flowers, you can go and take trimmings from the tree to decorate your home with, that way you can remember and honor them continually.
3. Scatter Their Ashes in Their Favorite Place
Work out where your loved one enjoyed spending their time- it may have been a town or somewhere in the countryside or maybe the beach. Take family and friends on a trip out there and remember your loved one as you scatter their ashes in a place that held significance to them.
4. Get a Cremation Ring Made
If someone was close to you, you may want to carry them with you forever. You can do this by having rings for cremation ashes made. That way, you can think of your loved one every time you look at the ring and they’re never far away. There are also necklaces that can be made that hold ashes of someone you loved.
5. Have Some of Their Clothing Framed
Is there a piece of clothing that they wore often that really said something about who they were, or reminded you so much of them? If so, you could have it framed and put on your wall. That would be a fitting symbol of their importance to you in your life.
6. Have Their Ashes Pressed into Vinyl
Was music important to your loved one? If it was, you could consider having their ashes pressed into vinyl. Think about their favorite songs and have their ashes made into a recording of it. You could either have the disc framed or you could enjoy listening to it on your record player.
7. Wear An Item of Their Clothing
There is a comfort in wearing the clothing of a deceased person that you loved. Even if it is just a small and symbolic item, when you wear it you’ll get flooded with fond memories of that person.
8. Send Their Ashes Into Space
There’s something that can be done with your person’s ashes, and it’s pretty “cool.” You can have their ashes sent on a journey of a lifetime into space. By adding their ashes to a giant helium balloon, you can send them into space.
9. Get a Tattoo in Memory
A popular way of remembering someone that has died is to get a tattoo for them. This could be a portrait of them, or it could be an image that is more personal to you and your loved one.
Think for awhile about what you want before you have the ink put to your skin, and make sure that you go with a tattooist whose work you are happy with. It would be very disappointing to have a memorial tattoo ruined because you went with a bad tattoo artist.
10. Have Your Loved One Literally Tattooed Into Your Skin
Some people will opt to have a tattoo of a deceased loved one’s face tattooed onto them, but there’s also another option. You can have your loved one’s ashes added to tattoo ink. This way, you can have a tattoo that is made of their actual ashes.
11. Have a Portrait Painted
Why not commemorate your loved one with a beautiful painting of them? You might have a favorite photo that you want turned into a piece of artwork that you can enjoy forever.
12. Have Them Made into a Fireworks Display
If you want to have a spectacular send-off for your loved one, you might want to consider having their ashes made into a firework. You could either opt to have the ashes scattered during your own private fireworks display (if fireworks are legal where you are), or you could approach a professional company and ask if you can have the ashes scattered there.
13. Have the Ashes Added to a Paperweight
If you don’t like the idea of an urn holding your loved one’s ashes, you might consider something that is a little more useful and ornamental at the same time. You could choose to have their ashes made into a paperweight.
14. Have Their Favorite Clothing Turned into a Teddy Bear
If you want to be reminded of your loved one by the way that they dressed, you could have their favorite item of clothing stitched into a teddy bear. Having this piece of comfort around will allow you to hold their memory close.
15. Hold a Party Once a Year in Their Honor
Remembering your loved one, and celebrating their life and the time that you had together, is an important part of grieving. Having a party in their honor every year, either on their birthday or on the day that they passed away, can be a beautiful and fun way of keeping their memory alive.
In many cultures, remembering the dead is not a somber occasion, but a joyous one where you celebrate the life that you had together.
•How do you remember and honor your deceased loved ones?
