How to Celebrate a Life Well Lived

Remembering and celebrating the good times helps assuage the grief of losing a loved one.

When a loved one passes away, the celebration of their life is often bittersweet. On the one hand, there is the pall of grief that lingers even after their death. On the other hand, you want to memorialize them, pay tribute and focus on the good that was their life. One thing that works well is to center the celebration around the things that the deceased loved; pepper the celebration with tributes and fun, heartwarming antidotes of what made knowing the person special.

Instructions

1. Take time to grieve. It's a painful step, but a necessary one. If left undealt with, it can be detrimental to the healing process and cause problems down the road. Plus, the celebration you're planning won't be as authentic; you may risk going through the motions as opposed to genuinely celebrating the person's life.

2. Center the celebration around doing what the deceased loved. For example, if he was an avid outdoorsman, plan a weekend camping trip at his favorite spot. Not only will it be therapeutic for you, but you will also being paying ample tribute to him.

3. Make thankfulness and gratitude the focus. Instead of grief and sorrow being the central theme---the bulk of which ideally have been navigated by now---focus on how fortunate you all are for having known her. She may no longer be with you, but at least you had the time you did and all of your lives are richer for it. For example, ask everyone to tell a story and share a pleasant, meaningful experience about her. The key is to keep it upbeat. Funeral services, memorials and eulogies have similar formats, but tend to feature tributes that are a bit more emotional in nature.

4. Select a special day to celebrate his life every year, if possible. For example, choosing his birthday would be a good idea. Or, commemorate the occasion on or near the anniversary of his death. That particular day can be emotionally taxing no matter how long it has been since his passing, so having a celebration should work well.

References

• ABClocal.go.com; "Celebrating a Life Well-Lived"; Iris Perez; July 7, 2010
• Doing What You Can Do; "Celebrating a Life Well Lived and Lessons Learned"; Kim George
• Hello Grief; "Celebrate You More, Mourn You Less"; Elizabeth Sullivan