Due to Covid-19 restrictions that prevented us from gathering on campus as bereaved families, we hosted our first virtual Memorial Service on Saturday, April 17th.
This was the eighteenth consecutive year of presenting the Memorial Service, which coincided with the twentieth anniversary of the death of Lynn McKenna, who along with her sister Laura forms the name of the Children’s Hospice. This year is also the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Children’s Hospice. All of these significant anniversaries added to the sense of occasion and celebration of the lives of the children we remembered and their families who participated.
The theme of this year’s Memorial Service was 'Rituals' - the routines, practices and customs that are carried out on a daily basis by bereaved families to continue the bonds of love that keep alive the memory of their beloved Child in their lives.
The Memorial Service is an event that exudes dignity, solemnity, reverence, celebration, remembrance, endeavouring to offer comfort, consolation and connection and above all, hope to bereaved families in their loss. I thank all who took part in the Service for generating all of these facets of a live ceremony yet online.
For once my prayers were not for good weather but for reliable internet connectivity. Even intercessory prayers have changed in these times!
Thomas Begley,
Chaplain, LauraLynn Children's Hospice
