Festival 2022
The To Absent Friends festival will take place across Scotland from 1-7 November 2022.
It is an excuse to remember, to tell stories, to celebrate and to reminisce about who have died.
Check out some of the events taking place below, and please get in touch if you'd like us to add your event to the listing below.
Remembered Always: Our patients of 2021
Organised by QEUH Critical Care Bereavement Support
QEUH Critical Care Bereavement Support are delighted to be taking part in the Absent Friends Festival, joining with families to remember our patients we lost in 2021.
The families of our deceased patients will shortly be receiving a wooden heart memento and an invite to participate in our Act of Remembrance by returning the name tag with their loved one's name on.
Our Bereavement Team will gather together to carry out the Act of Remembrance, where our patient’s names will be read out and the tags placed on the Tree of Remembrance.
The Tree of Remembrance will be situated in the Critical Care reception to allow both staff and relatives time for acknowledgement and reflection during Absent Friends Festival week.
Photo credit: Kirsty McGhie. Wooden heart keepsake by BeeCreative
Supper of remembrance – Heidi’s happiness
Organised by St Mary's For All
Friday 4th November 2022. 4 - 6pm
Beechtree cafe, St Mary’s For All Centre, 4a Auchingramont Road, Hamilton, ML3 6JT
Come along and join us in a celebration of our amazing friend Heidi as part of the To Absent Friends initiative over Scotland.
We will be sharing happiness as Heidi would have wanted with a free shared soup/sandwiches supper and lots of chat remembering lost friends and family.
We will also have a tree of reminiscence to write names in memory of our lost loved ones.
In memory of Heidi’s love of flowers - it shall have a floral theme.
This is a free event and would love to see you there and enjoying our event.
Find details on our facebook account - @stmarysforall
Photo credit: St Mary's For All
A Playlist to Remember - University Hospital Monklands
Organised by University Hospital Monklands Spiritual Care Department
Date: 1st to 14th November 2022
Location: University Hospital Monklands
To Absent Friends is always a highlight for our Spiritual Care Department in NHS Lanarkshire.
Our project this year, A Playlist to Remember, is based on our understanding of the deep and powerful connection between music and memory. It’s likely we have all experienced being transported to a different time and placed when listening to music. In our project we hope to reflect the wonder of music in reconnecting us, in memory, to loved ones and to others who have come into our lives.
We are inviting people to help us create a ‘Playlist to Remember’.
The process of gathering music will be creative and interactive, individual and communal. People will write their dedicated piece of music on a 7” vinyl record shaped card and attach it to a wall frieze. This will produce a temporary growing art installation in University Hospitals Hairmyres, Monklands, and Wishaw. Contributors will receive a treble clef badge to remember taking part, encourage conversations with others, and raise awareness of our To Absent Friends project. Support will be available through the spiritual care and staff care teams and refreshments provided.
For more information, contact Lorraine Allan or Kathryn Anderson on 01698 752496.
Photo credit: NHS Lanarkshire
The Lonely Funeral
Organised by Lapidus Scotland
This event will take place on Thursday, November 10th from 5.30-6.30 in the University of Dundee’s Chaplaincy Centre.
It will focus on the idea of The Lonely Funeral, a concept developed in the Netherlands and Belgium whose aim is to celebrate the lives of deceased individuals who die unidentified, unknown or unmourned.
The event is being organised by Andy Jackson, a writer and editor, and Michael Hannah, an independent celebrant and writer. In addition, there will be contributions from several poets who have expressed an interest in the aims and objectives of the project.
The event will focus on several aspects of the project:
- An overview of the history and development of The Lonely Funeral in the Low Countries
- How the project began and how it operates as a social and cultural service
- How it is hoped The Lonely Funeral will develop in Scotland, and details of progress
- Presenters will discuss the connections they have made with interested parties and consider potential benefits which the project will offer, and any problems or obstacles to be overcome
- Two/Three ‘Lonely Funeral´ eulogies delivered by celebrants and poets forming part of the project
- Eulogies will draw on real people whose funerals were attended by either a few people or no-one
- Eulogies will be delivered in the form of a poem using what information can be gleaned about the deceased or the circumstances of their death
- This will give a sense of how a ‘Lonely Funeral’ might operate if the project proceeds
- Conclusion – next steps and questions from attendees
Attendance will be open to anyone, and it is hoped that it will be recorded as made available after the event.
Photo credit: Lapidus Scotland
Gone but not forgotten
Organised by North Argyll Carers Centre
The Covid 19 pandemic created terrible hardships and sadness for so many, and one of the most heartbreaking effects of the pandemic has been the inability for groups to meet together to celebrate the life of a loved one after their death.
North Argyll Carers Centre has organized this moving outdoor event with the help of funding from Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief, to allow carers throughout the remote and isolated areas where we offer support to come together and remember the loved ones we have lost.
Bereaved carers from Argyll and the Isles will meet on a local beach, where they will write the names of the loved ones they have lost in the sand. We will watch together as the sea washes the names away with the incoming tide, as the sun goes down.
Bereaved carers from Mull & North Argyll can take part in the event on the same evening, at a designated local beach, accompanied by support staff from North Argyll Carers Centre.
For more information and to join us at one of our locations please email Mairi: mairi@northargyllcarers.org.uk
Photo credit: North Argyll Carers Centre
RSS