Memorial Services

“Although it’s difficult today to see beyond the sorrow,
May looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow”
~Author unknown

Some tenants in our buildings who die have no family to arrange a memorial service. Yet they have friends in the buildings who remember them and miss them. So the MIND Program organizes a simple memorial service in their building. We gather two or three times a year for a time of remembrance, grieving, and appreciation of the person(s) who have recently died – their friends, their caregivers, their neighbours. We then share some food together.

When we organized our first such memorial service we were surprised to find that no one had a photo of the departed person. So we simply displayed a card with their unit number on it.  That has become our tradition now since photos are almost never available.

The most recent service was held at 40 Firvalley Court in September 2022 to remember tenants who had passed away since the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020. This included Diana Brooks, who was part of starting a meal program in her building several years ago, and had been a member of the MIND Program’s Board of Directors since 2018.

God’s Garden

God looked around his garden
And found an empty place.
He then looked down upon the earth,
And saw your tired face.

He put His arms around you
And lifted you to rest.
God’s garden must be beautiful,
He always takes the best.

He knew that you were suffering,
He knew that you were in pain.
He knew that you would never
Get well on earth again.

He saw the road was getting rough
And the hills were hard to climb.
So He closed your weary eyelids
And whispered “Peace be thine.”

It broke our hearts to lose you
But you did not go alone…
For part of us went with you
The day God called you home.

- Author Unknown