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Family finds surprise gift on mom's memorial bench after leaving balls of yarn as a tribute

"I just hope this is a reminder to everyone that the simplest act of kindness from you can completely brighten a stranger’s day."

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Family finds surprise gift on mom's grave after leaving yarn tribute

Losing a loved one is difficult. It feels exceptionally more difficult when the person you've lost is your parent but you do what you can to keep their memory alive. Everyone has their own way of doing this. It could be that they've planted a tree to put their ashes around or they wear their loved one's favorite sweater on rough days.

There's no right or wrong way of paying tribute to someone that has passed as it's usually a personal decision. When Robin Epley, a writer for the Sacramento Bee lost her mother Cynthia in 2019, she and her father went with a bench design for her grave marker so they could sit with her. The bench is made of stone with her mother's picture emblazoned on the front.

On a more recent visit to the memorial bench, the pair decided to leave balls of yarn as a tribute since the mom was an avid crocheter, teaching Robin the craft at just six years old. The small act of remembrance was just that, a tiny gesture that meant something that a passerby may not understand. After leaving, the pair didn't think much of it until they returned for another visit only to find a surprise waiting for them on that very bench.

pink and green flower bouquet on brown concrete wall Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash

Someone had taken the yarn and knitted a scarf out of it, draping it over the area of the bench that displayed Cynthia's name. There was no note left with the handmade gift. Just a scarf created by someone that decided to turn a family's tribute into a piece of wearable love and a couple of bouquets of flowers.

Robin shared a photo of the bench with the knitted scarf visible on X, explaining how the scarf got there, writing, "im sobbing: My mom was a big crocheter, so on her bench at East Lawn, my dad and I left one of her balls of yarn as a tribute. He just went back today after a few weeks to tend to the site, and someone had used the yarn to knit mom a scarf."


People were moved by the act of kindness by a stranger with some even suggesting possible culprits to the artistic endeavor, one of which caught Robin's attention. In a follow up comment, the grieving daughter writes, "I don’t know who did it, though someone has suggested it was the wonderful staff or volunteers at @EastLawnSac, a group which my mom was a part of. I just hope this is a reminder to everyone that the simplest act of kindness from you can completely brighten a stranger’s day."

Others chimed in to share their own stories of loss and ways of coping, while also admiring what this anonymous knitter did for the family of Cynthia.


One person writes, "Oh that is so special. I wear the joggers my mom wore the last time I saw her. I remember she had them on backwards because I could see the pockets. She laughed her familiar laugh for me one last time. That was two years ago. It's getting easier. Thanks for sharing."

Someone else gives their guess on who might have done such a kind gesture, "This is so sweet. I know there are a lot of regular visitors and volunteers who like to care for the memorials, but my money is on a staff member having done this. The staff and leadership at East Lawn are very special people."

Cry Hug GIF by HollyoaksGiphy

Robin and her dad may never find out who made the scarf using the yarn they left behind, but that act of kindness will stay with them both for years to come, and Cynthia would approve.

"Knowing someone out there who didn’t even know my mom cared enough to do this has me in total shambles. honestly, it’s totally something my mom would have done for someone else, karma is real," Robin says in response to another commenter.

It doesn't always take a lot to be kind to others but it can turn someone's day around. Sometimes people just need a reminder that someone out there cares, even if it doesn't always feel that way. Acts of kindness can go a long way.

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Family

Jogger and her dog bring unexpected comfort to grieving 6-year-old at her father's funeral

via Emily Bierman / Facebook

Dogs can be a tremendous help to people experiencing grief. They provide unconditional love, always listen, and are so attuned to feelings they're known to comfort people when they're feeling sad.

Six-year-old Raelynn Nast must have known this when she reached out to a stranger and her dog during one of the hardest moments of her young life.

Emily Beineman of Arkansas was jogging with her dog, Blue, recently when she heard a young voice call to her from the steps of a funeral home. "May I pet your puppy?" Raelynn asked. Emily said she could as long as she asked her parents first.

However, Raelynn said that her parents weren't able to give her permission at that moment. "Oh my parents aren't out here," Emily recounted in a Facebook post, "my mom's inside and my daddy died... we are at his funeral."

Raelynn's father, Davey, had recently died of colon cancer at the age of 41. Before Emily could say a word, Blue walked up to Raelynn and the young girl wrapped her arms around the dog and wouldn't let go.

The young girl asked Emily if she would like to "come in and meet my dad."

Emily said that she would as long as it was ok that she was in her jogging attire. "Keep in mind I had just got done running 3 miles," she wrote.

"Everyone was kind of looking around like, 'Where did she come from?' And she came in right next to Rae like they'd known each other for so long. There was that connection there," Raelynn's mother, Lacey, told CBS.

Raelynn's mother wasn't shocked that Raelynn invited a stranger to the visitation because she's a "daddy's girl" who "always wanted to introduce her dad to everybody."

Raelynn introduced Emily to her friends and family at the funeral home and then asked if she could stay a few more minutes so she could pet Blue. Raelynn's aunt took the opportunity to walk up to Emily and whisper in her ear.

"I think God led you and Blue over here today for a reason," she said. "Blue's love and gentleness that she has showed her has touched our hearts."

Jogger with dog offers comfort to grieving child during father's funeralwww.youtube.com

Emily believes Blue knew the young girl was experiencing tremendous grief. "I've always referred to Blue as my 'gentle giant' because I've always felt that she could sense when someone is sad/upset/etc. and has this overwhelming calmness about her that is indescribable," she wrote.

"This little girl will probably never realize how special today was for me but it was exactly what I needed," Emily added. "I'm a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. And I truly believe we were meant to meet this little girl."

When Raelynn was asked how she bonded with Emily so quickly she responded, "She helped me feel better."

Raelynn may have lost a father, but she now has a new friend. She and Emily met up again in late April and have promised to "stay friends forever."

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Wellness

Zoom memorials highlight the ironic cruelty of trying to mourn together during the pandemic

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Earlier this month, I attended my first Zoom wedding. A week after that, I attended a Zoom baby shower.

Tomorrow, I'll attend a Zoom gathering to mourn the loss of a family friend. His name was Peter. He died of COVID-19 last week.

This gathering isn't technically a funeral or memorial service, but rather a virtual devotional taking place on Zoom at the same time as Peter's physical burial. A few close friends and family will gather at the gravesite—masked and distanced—while the rest of us share readings and prayers over Zoom to honor his interment.

It's weird. There's no other way to say it. With the wedding and baby shower, we all sort of laughed our way through the weirdness. We acknowledged the bummer of not being able to get together, but at this point we're all accustomed to having to meet virtually. Zoom celebrations are better than no celebrations at all.

But mourning this way feels...different. We can't laugh away the awkwardness of it when the Zoom meeting itself is a reminder of the tragic cause of our friend's death.

Celebratory gatherings are fun, but not necessary. Gathering when someone dies feels necessary in a way, and the inability to do that adds an extra layer of loss to the grief we're already experiencing. Normally, our whole community would gather together to honor Peter's life tomorrow. We'd put on appropriate funeral attire, stand side by side at his grave, hold hands or hug one another as we mark the momentousness of his passing. We'd all bring food and break bread together as we share stories of his life. We'd pass around tissues, crying and laughing and sharing in the oh-so-human experience of bringing together the lives he had touched.

But we can't do any of that. If we did, we'd run the risk of having to do it all over again for another friend or loved one taken too soon by this stupid virus. So we do what we can do and deal with the strange questions—What does one wear to a Zoom mourning? How long it will be before we can actually gather for a real memorial service? Will it feel like it's too late then? Will we want to do that in the midst of celebrating a return to non-distanced life?

This pandemic has taken so much, and each thing stings in its own way. The death toll itself is overwhelming, especially here in the U.S. where we have already lost more than 330,000 lives. A hundred 9/11s and counting. Five Vietnams in less than a year. It's unreal. In the beginning, we were told that all of us would likely end up knowing someone who died of COVID-19, and some people have now lost multiple family members. More will follow as we head into the deadliest month of the pandemic. That's not doom and gloom forecasting—that's the reality of the current moment.

But the loss of in-person mourning as millions are losing loved ones before they expected to is a tragedy in and of itself. There's a cruel irony in it, that we can't gather in person to mourn if we want to stop the thing that's making it so we can't gather in person to mourn. When we need the comfort of coming together the most, we can't, as indulging in that comfort could lead to even more suffering. Of all of the sacrifices we've had to make, the loss of communal mourning is one of the hardest.

And so we open our computers and enter our virtual meeting rooms and try to comfort one another through our grief amid the inevitable unmute reminders. It's weird. It all feels wrong. But it's necessary. We need to mourn our losses together. We also need to be able to mourn the fact that we're not able to do that the way we want to.

There is gratitude to be found in all of this, of course. It's pretty incredible that we live in a time when we have the technology to at least see one another's faces and hear people's voices as we share our losses at a distance. If this pandemic had hit in my childhood, we'd have had no community ability to mourn at all. A Zoom gathering to mourn is better than no gathering at all—but it's still all of the weird, wrong, sad things at once.

And what's extra painful about it is that it didn't have to be this way. Next time we have a pandemic, let's all agree to just follow New Zealand's lead, shall we? Hundreds of thousands of Zoom funerals really ought to be enough to get us all on the same page.

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Heroes

From quilts to embroidery: Creative ways artists memorialize those who've passed away.

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Prudential

Everyone who's lost a loved one has memories and stories of them that they will always treasure.

Talking about those memories and sharing them with others can help people cope with grief and also to celebrate the legacy of their loved one. Something else that's a good healing tool? Art.

Artist Bisa Butler uses quilting to memorialize those who've died.  

"I’ve suffered loss and I know that longing for that person," she said.

For the past 15 years, Butler has turned loss into warmth and comfort through commemorative quilts. She bases her quilts on photographs of loved ones — including her own grandmother as she neared the end of life. Butler works to find ways to pour extra meaning into her quilts; for her grandmother's quilt, for example, she incorporated violets into the pattern because that was also her grandmother's name.

When Butler was tasked with making a quilt to honor the late Howard Fitch, she used parts of a military shirt to commemorate his service and commitment to his country.

"Abundant Blessings" image via Bisa Butler, used with permission.

Butler made the quilt for Dawn Fitch, Howard's daughter, as part of Prudential's "Masterpiece of Love"campaign. The series honors life, love, loss, and the power of the human spirit by bringing together four artists with four survivors of loss to create works that celebrate their loved ones.

Butler's quilt of Fitch was intended not only to celebrate him, but to provide comfort and protection to his family.

"For me, the very nature of looking at fabric stitched is a comfort," she said. "For people to have that tangible piece, it's not only something nice to look at, it's something nice to touch."

Artist Christine DaCruz discovered a different way of interpreting death — through an embroidery project.

During an artist residency that focused on how news is interpreted, DaCruz got an idea to embroider obituaries from The New York Times.

"The shift became to not necessarily talk about their death but to reflect on their life," she said. "I thought the New York Times' obituaries did such a good job at collecting the stories of how these people lived and what was important to them."

Image from "The Obituaries" via Christine DaCruz, used with permission.

In "The Obituaries," a series that can be found on her website, DaCruz takes photographs used in obituaries and hand-stitches colored thread through the paper to embellish the photos. What makes them extra interesting is how she draws outside of the cropped photo images to include what she imagines the rest of the photo to look like.

Image from "The Obituaries" via Christine DaCruz, used with permission.

It's just one way she likes to celebrate life and learn people's histories — even if they may be strangers.

"We are all affected by [death]," DaCruz noted, "but just reflecting on the person's life and all the good they brought into the world and how they affected people positively is a way to embrace and celebrate them."

When DaCruz was asked to memorialize the life of Mickey McNany, she knew just the route to take.

Mickey, the late mother of Ryan McNany, is another of the loved ones featured in Prudential's "Masterpiece of Love" series.

McNany was the founding director of the Theatre School at the Paper Mill Playhouse. Even after losing her fight with late-stage cancer, she continues to touch countless lives; 87% of the kids McNany mentored throughout the years have ended up in a career in theater arts.

"She was a force to be reckoned with," said DaCruz, after learning McNany's story.

Mickey McNany. Image via Prudential, used with permission.

McNany helped so many people realize their dreams, DaCruz thought, so why not give her her own playbill cover?

DaCruz used inspiration for the piece "Show Biz Kid" from a photo of McNany doing what she loved: teaching.

"Showbiz Kid" by Christine DaCruz. Image via Prudential, used with permission.

"She motivated all these kids to get out on stage and break out of their isolated boxes," DaCruz recalled. "She helped them come out of her comfort zone."

Art — whether it’s writing, painting, dancing, observing, or something else — can be a productive outlet to promote healing and expression.

There's a reason art therapy is becoming an increasingly popular method of care. Art, prayer, and healing can help to bring one's thoughts inward, and that journey can be deeply transformative.

"People really connect with art," DaCruz said. "Even if they don’t visit museums on a regular basis, everybody is drawn to something beautiful, especially if it’s about something they recognize."

"What’s more recognizable than somebody they love?"

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