How do You Honor Someone’s Life, 18 Months Later? With QR Codes, Perhaps.

This past weekend, I was finally able to host an in-person celebration event for Chelsea, almost a year-and-a-half after she died. Part of the delay was a function of navigating the academic calendar; most of it was a function of covid. I wanted to wait until I felt like it was safe to gather folks together in numbers, without masks, where we could laugh, hug, cry, and see one another’s faces.

COVID almost got the better of us, again: last week there was a positive exposure at E’s school, and I got notes from about 4 people who said they couldn’t come because of COVID. Turns out I still can’t get out in front of this damned virus, or maybe I’m just not learning my lesson…

Fortunately, we were able to have host event, and it was lovely. We had a wonderful turnout, we toasted Chelsea’s life, shared stories, laughed, cried a little, and gave lots of overdue hugs. My hope had been that, while we did have to wait 18 months to get together, the time/distance gave us the ability to be more celebratory in tone. That probably was the case, but a friend added some valuable perspective on this idea of tone: it’s easier to celebrate someone’s life when you know that their surviving family members are okay. Had we done this event a few months after Chelsea died, that would have been an open question, but at this point it’s clear that E and I are okay and are moving forward. Putting that on display publicly, allowing folks to see that, makes it easier to spend the time celebrating Chelsea’s life.

All that being said, it was a really tricky event to plan. It wasn’t really a formal memorial service (we had already done a virtual remembrance event), but it needed to give folks space to process the loss; it wasn’t a party, because someone had died, but it did need to be celebratory; and it needed to be semi-structured, so that folks had some space to reflect on their own, but also had enough guidance so that the event didn’t get awkward (Have you ever been to an event where everyone is standing around and doesn’t know what to do? That’s what we were trying to avoid).

Perhaps most importantly, there wasn’t really a template for what to do, given the circumstances. On some levels, this was appropriate, in that I don’t think Chelsea would have wanted a big, formal service in a church, so we weren’t under pressure to do that (Covid basically shut the door on that option). We had some freedom to be creative, but the flip side to being creative is that you’re often in the unknown, which makes it hard to know what to do.

In talking with friends, we ended up adopting a planning philosophy that was very similar to how Chelsea might have planned a class: identify your goals, pick activities that can support those goals, create space for people to think/reflect, and, most importantly, give individuals space to explore on their own, or in small groups.

The first few parts of the event were relatively straightforward: our goals were to celebrate Chelsea and create community, which we could do by bringing people together. As I mentioned above, we toasted Chelsea and shared stories, which was a lovely way to celebrate her life. But figuring out how to create a semi-structured space in which people could be reflective and curate their own experience was tricky.

Fortunately, I have some smart and creative friends, and we came up with a cool activity that I think Chelsea would have liked: a digital story wall.

In the weeks leading up to the event, I reached out to Chelsea’s friends, family, colleagues, and students to solicit short stories, which they audio recorded and sent to me. I uploaded those stories to the cloud, creating QR codes for each. At the actual event, we had a story wall, with a series of stations that displayed a picture and a QR code; participants could walk around, hit the QR code with their phones, and listen to each of the audio-recorded stories that folks submitted. The nature of the space meant that folks could wander at their own pace, in their own time.

The activity was nice in that it blended Chelsea’s interests in story and tech, but also created a way for folks who were absent to participate in the event asynchronously. I’m hoping I can continue adding stories to the collection over time, so that I’ll have this growing archive of Chelsea stories available to anyone who wants to listen, which might come in handy as E gets older. I like the idea of her being in high school, listening to a story about her mom in high school from one of her mom’s high school friends.

Snap feedback from people suggests that the activity, and the event, were a success. It certainly took a lot out of me emotionally (more on that next time), but I did appreciate the fact that Chelsea’s students thought the activities aligned with something they might have experienced in a Chelsea class.

So how do you celebrate someone’s life, 18 months after they die? Turns out QR codes and audio recordings make a nice combo :)