Setting the Course

In more detail

Visitation Connections

Visitation Connections helps guests find each other and start talking. HeldFast provides a set of name tags for guests to fill out when they arrive. Each tag has room for how they knew the person and an “Ask me about…” line, such as the fishing trip in 1998 or the year they worked the night shift together. Each tag also carries a small symbol, and guests are invited to find the person wearing the matching one and learn how that person knew their loved one. Families can add other elements, such as a table of writing prompts or a place to leave a short letter, and a HeldFast Guide can move through the room to help conversations along. Everything guests write is collected and given to the family afterward.

Remembrance Roundtables

A Remembrance Roundtable can be held in two ways. A Gathered Roundtable brings people together at a scheduled time, and a HeldFast facilitator guides the conversation. An Open Roundtable is set up where guests naturally gather, with prompts and paper on the table, so people can sit down whenever they are ready. Some families like to place a few of the person's belongings on the table, such as a favorite mug or a well-worn deck of cards, though this is entirely optional.

Children's Circle

When a family loses someone close, children are often silent observers of everything going on around them. The Children's Circle gives them a way to take part, through activities that let them honor the person they love and express their gratitude in their own way. HeldFast brings all of the materials and sets up a welcoming space for them, including drawing and writing pages made especially for children, along with crayons, markers, and a few simple prompts. A HeldFast facilitator leads a small group through activities such as drawing a favorite memory, looking at photographs, or answering a simple question, and no child is expected to sit still or say the right thing. Parents and caregivers may stay nearby or let their children take part on their own. The circle can run alongside the other activities at the visitation or as a short session of its own.

Quiet Remembrance Circle

The Quiet Remembrance Circle is meant for gatherings where words feel difficult or unnecessary. Your Guide offers a few simple prompts and leaves plenty of silence between them. Guests may write privately or sit with their own thoughts, and nothing is spoken aloud unless the family asks the Guide to open or close the circle with a few words. It is especially well suited to a room where emotions are close to the surface.

The Uncut Story Session

Most people would rather be remembered as they really were than as a polite eulogy describes them. The Uncut Story Session makes room for the whole person, including the temper, the terrible jokes, and the time he drove three hours for a pie. A HeldFast facilitator opens the session and keeps the tone kind and inclusive, and it can be as irreverent or as lighthearted as fits the person being remembered. The session can take place during the visitation or afterward, at the funeral home or somewhere else. With everyone's permission, it can be recorded or written up for the family.

Eulogy Support

A eulogy is usually one person’s job, and it often falls to a single family member in the days after a death. Eulogy Support shares the work. Before the service, a HeldFast Guide meets with family and close friends and uses prompts to draw out the stories and small details they want remembered. From those words, HeldFast shapes a eulogy that sounds like the people who knew the person best. It can be read by one family member, divided among several voices, or delivered by HeldFast during the service. Afterward, the eulogy becomes a keepsake for the family that can be copied and shared with others.

A Eulogy Around the Table

This eulogy is written by the whole room. At a luncheon or remembrance meal, each table receives a stack of cards with short prompts, some serious and some funny.

Guests answer a line or two at a time and pin their cards to a board near the door, where everyone can watch the eulogy take shape and read what others have added. No one has to write much or speak alone.

Before the meal ends, the HeldFast Guide arranges the cards into a single eulogy, keeping each person’s words where possible, and it is read aloud by a family member, by several voices in turn, or by HeldFast.

The board and the finished eulogy go home with the family. The eulogy becomes a keepsake that can be copied and shared with relatives and friends, including those who were not able to be there.

Games to Remember

Games to Remember works something like the games at a baby shower, except every answer is about the person you are missing. It is usually held at a luncheon after the service or at a dinner at home. Guests might guess the year a photograph was taken or decide how she would have answered a particular question. One game is a timeline of the person's life with blanks left in it, and guests fill in what they know, such as the first car, the summer job at the lumberyard, or the year the family moved to the lake. A HeldFast Guide runs the games and leaves time between rounds, because the answers tend to start stories. The finished timeline and anything else guests write down are kept for the family.

Toast to the Departed

A toast is short, and nearly anyone can give one. Guests choose a drink and raise it to the person who has died, offering a sentence or two or saying their name. Guests receive note cards with prompts so they can write their words down first, and the cards are kept for the family. Some families also invite a few people to give longer toasts at a set time. Toasts can be recorded if the family wishes. Drinks containing alcohol require permission from the funeral home or church.

Letters from Loved Ones

Many people find it hard to say what they mean while standing in a receiving line, and this offering gives them more time. Each guest takes home a pre-addressed envelope and a short letter of invitation, and they are encouraged to write to the family in the days or weeks that follow. They may write a few lines or several pages, and they may sign their name or send the note anonymously. These letters often arrive after the first rush of visitors has passed, which is when many families need them most.