Proposed form Not a report of established or tested use.
- When
- A date that matters to those remembering; no common anniversary is required
- How often
- annual
- Mood
- reflective
This observance does not recover a person. It can give a loss a place in a shared day, without improving the loss into a lesson.
What is remembered may be tender, difficult or mixed. Nobody has to present a reconciled account. Nothing about the form establishes what happens after death; Digital Continuance keeps that question separate from the records that remain.
The observance
-
Name, or keep the name private
A person may say a name, remember silently, or pass. No account of the relationship is required.
-
Attend to an inherited thing
A phrase, a skill, an object, a question. It need not be a flattering memory or a complete account of the person.
-
Choose what to carry
Teach or record something only if it is yours to share. You may also decide that an unfinished task will not be continued.
-
End without explaining the loss
Keep a short silence, read For Grief if it is welcome, or simply finish. No statement about the afterlife is required.
If you are organizing one
- Offer the form; do not impose it on someone who is bereaved.
- Do not use generated speech as the dead person's response or consent.
- Make leaving easy. A shorter observance is not a lesser one.