Today’s episode explores the very personal challenge of celebrating the life of a loved one through memories, tributes, and stories that memorialize their lives.
, experienced as a business consultant, professor, and speaker, was accustomed to public speaking, but this challenge was new. His solution was both creative and inspiring. As he shares in the recorded program, he made three crucial decisions that made this remarkable program possible:Don’t rush.
He realized that he didn’t need to rush into the program. After losing Cindy in January, Jim and his family planned the event for May, four months later. They reflected on May as an appropriate time to celebrate the mother they’d lost. In retrospect, the added time was helpful as part of the grieving process.
Use the technology.
Since many family members were out of town or out of state, he used Zoom calls' flexibility to initiate conversations with friends, family, neighbors, and collaborators. Recording these calls helped him capture her life's spirit and joy — and provided poignant moments to play back during the presentation.
Go with your comfort zone.
He used his experience as a public speaker to organize the talk in a way that would make sense to friends and family gathered in a large hall and online. He structured the talk chronologically based on the many locations they’d lived in during their extraordinary life together.
I hope you enjoy this presentation and find it as inspiring as we did today’s audience. Please add your thoughts, experiences, and insights in the comments below. It might just take you a moment, but you may inspire dozens of others:
About this series
“Forget-Me-Not: How We Memorialise” is a six-part series for storytellers and family historians that explores how we memorialize and preserve the stories of people who have died. The series is a collaboration between Jane Hutcheon of The Juvenile Geriatric Newsletter and Projectkin.org, a community of family historians hooked on stories.
Jane Hutcheon is a Sydney-based journalist and the creator and former host of the ABCTV interview show One Plus One from 2010 until 2019. She is also a writer and performer in theater productions. In 2022 she wrote a show about my mother’s upbringing called Lost in Shanghai, and her latest show is Difficult Conversations with Jane Hutcheon. We’re thrilled to have this Forget-Me-Not series as part of Projectkin.
More about Jane’s concept for the series, and join us at an upcoming event!
Are there topics you’d like us to cover in this series or as Projectkin? Please don’t hesitate to let us know. We’d love to hear from you and welcome member participation in our programs.
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