Remembering Your Loved One's Death Anniversary

You can make this day purposeful in a way that both honors the deceased and celebrates your love and relationship with them. Here’s how you can make this day a memorable one:   

It’s advisable to take a day off from your daily routine to dedicate the whole day to the lost loved one. That one day should reflect your eternal and unconditional love for the deceased and give you a chance to process your emotions. You may experience feelings of regret and extreme grief, but you can try to hold yourself together and do things that your loved one used to do on special, happy occasions. It may make you feel better.  

What’s better than honoring your loved one by planting a tree in their name? Along with being the friends of the environment, trees also reflect new beginnings as they slowly grow, get old, and eventually die, just like humans. 

You may plant it inside your house if you have a garden or near the deceased’s final resting place. Seeing it will always remind you of your loved one and accelerate the healing process.  

The things we regret the most are the words we never said to our loved ones, the feelings we wished but never conveyed to them. And there’s no better day to say it all aloud than your loved one’s death anniversary.  

You should write a letter from the bottom of your heart and speak everything you wished to say. It is a perfect way to express your complicated emotions and feelings or to reiterate your love and gratitude for the deceased.  

You may read the letter out aloud or silently near his/her gravesite or bury it in a garden or let the mighty ocean take care of it.     

Your beloved’s death anniversary is probably the best time to invite your friends and family over to your house for dinner. Serve them the favorite meals and beverages of your loved one. Ask everyone to share a story or a funny incident they have had with the deceased – so everyone could have a laugh.    

You may arrange a virtual meeting while corona restrictions are still in place.  

They say nature helps you find your soul and seek solace. You can mark the day by spending some time in nature or going on a hike as a way to honor your loved one. It would be even better if you travel to the deceased’s favorite picnic spot - the one where you used to go together on weekends.   

Visiting the resting place of the deceased, be it a gravesite or the place where the cremated remains have been scattered, honors the memory of that person.  

It’s a great way of showing that you still remember and love them, while many consider it as a spiritual way of getting solace. You can bring candles or flowers to or plant a tree near the gravesite.   

Funeral homes in Bethlehem, PA, may become part of the death anniversary ritual as well if the deceased is buried in a cemetery.