Bereavement Professional

Weaving can be a remarkable way of memorializing. The photos in this posting are examples of what they might look like. The smaller weaving projects in two of these photos were made by members of a grief support group. One utilized a traditional table top loom, while the other was created by forming a loom made from curly willow. The weaving in the third photo was created as the centerpiece for a memorial service. The weaving was constructed on a large piace of geo-jute, a form of erosion control. The jute was about 7 feet long and 4 feet wide. It comes on a large roll and it can be bought by the yard at Home Depot. Because we didn't want to by the whole roll, we found a company who specializes in erosion control and they donated a piece to us. We then selected three different colors of cover stock paper - forest green, a deep burgundy and a light brown or tan. The names of the staff were printed on the forest green, the names of the volunteers were printed on burgundy, and the names of the patients were printed on the tan. There were 3 names to a strip. Then all three colors were woven into the the jute. The weaving was placed as the central focal point at the memorial service. In some ways it was very much like the Viet Nam Memorial Wall in that people who attended the service would come forward and attempt to find the name of their loved one. There was no key or guide as to where names were located since they were randomly woven into the jute. As the service come to a conclusion, we provided varying colored ribbons with pens where family members could write something to their loved one and weave it into the jute as well as flowers. We also had a concurrent children's session happening where the kids made paper flowers to weave in as well. The completed weaving also hung in our meditation room for the remainder of the year for staff to encounter and to participate in the weaving as well.

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