How and Why to Do a Virtual Memorial

I am so glad we decided to have an online virtual memorial gathering soon after my father’s death. It brought us together as siblings and gave us something to do during those first days and weeks after he died. It was difficult and it took a lot of work. It was distracting. After it was all over there was a let down and I felt my grief more deeply and in different ways than I did leading up to the memorial. But it gave us so many benefits — we shared our memories, created a beautiful 7-minute slide show, met with old friends and family far and wide, and we have a recording of the whole gathering that we can cherish. If we hadn’t done this at this time, I don’t think we would have done anything in the future when we can gather in person again. Or at least it would have been different, and perhaps more difficult. It is satisfying and comforting to look back on this gathering now, even though it had to be online.
 
The inspiration and model for this came from the “zoomeral” of my partner’s aunt. The first thing I did was tell my siblings about that experience and how beautiful and helpful it was. I called the organizer of that event to ask about the details – super helpful!! I had planning meetings on zoom with my siblings — this gave them an opportunity to get more comfortable with that platform.
 
Our event took place about 2 ½ weeks after my dad died. It was a bit of a scramble, but we didn’t want to wait too long and it was worth it. I think there is a lot of value in doing it soon to give you something to work toward, to express your feelings while they are still very fresh, to give others a chance to participate and come together, and to get past it so you can focus on other things and other ways of grieving.
 
We kept it short; it’s difficult to be on zoom for very long, and we wanted kids to be able to be there. Fewer transitions between speakers, photos and music means less potential for technical glitches. We had some prayers, about 5-10 minutes of music, a 7-minute slideshow with music, personal sharing from the children of the deceased for 15 minutes, and about 15 minutes of open sharing. An additional wonderful feature was having breakout rooms after the formal gathering for further discussion among friends and family.
 
We hired a zoom technical assistant to: 

1. Do zoom practice sessions before the event, if requested
2. Provide assistance by phone during the meeting
3. Do a tech run through 
4. Log on early to help with tech issues and assist anyone who has questions
5. Give basic zoom instructions at the beginning of the gathering (how to mute, chat, change gallery/speaker view)
6. Handle issues during the meeting (admit and mute people, etc.)
7. Share screen, play music, show pictures and slideshow
8. Help monitor the chat
9. Set up breakout rooms

For the slideshow, we created a Youtube video of the photos with music. Luckily we had a family member who could do this for us, otherwise it is worth it to pay someone to do it. After putting pictures in a shared, online powerpoint we just sent the link and the musical selection to the helper. This saved us a lot of hassle. 
 
You also need an MC for the event. My recommendation is that it be someone close to the family, but not an immediate family member. The MC is the primary speaker who is the leader, welcomes everyone, sets the tone, states the purpose of the event, keeps things on track, invites others to speak, and closes the event. In our case, the MC was also the pastor who led the prayers at the beginning and end. 
 
Other things we did:

• Invite everyone to put their name and how they know the deceased in the chat so we could save that as our virtual guest book. 
• Invite people to share after the siblings had spoken, encouraging brevity. People can also share in the chat.
• Create a script for all the key players to follow, including color coding each person’s responsibilities.
• Make a recording with a title page and upload it to a video sharing site. 

 
Biggest lessons learned:

• It’s a lot more work than you think and distracts from the other work of grieving. 
• It's important to grieve together, no matter how you have to do it.
• Zoom can be fickle, even if you think you know how to use it really well. 
• A full tech run-through well ahead of time to fix any issues is a must.
• The Zoom technical assistant and the host of the zoom meeting must have the same version of zoom. Check on this before you schedule the meeting and send out the link to everyone! After that, it is too late.

I hope this information helps anyone planning to do a virtual memorial.
 
Other resources:
Steven Birenbaum, How to Hold. Virtual Memorial Service, NYT 1-14-21
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/well/family/virtual-funeral-advice.html
 
Debbie Waldman, How to Pay Your Respects During a Virtual Funeral, Wired, 3-17-21
https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-funeral-etiquette-manners/