Memory candles at a wedding
My mom and I went to a wedding yesterday for a couple who married later in the age game.
Their parents have all passed away, but they were not forgotten at the wedding Mass. The siblings of the bride and the groom lighted candles in honor of the deceased parents. The names of the parents were listed in the wedding program, with their birth dates and death dates.
And the couple had invited several older friends of the parents, including my 90-year-old mother, in order to have an elder presence there, since their parents could not be. People in the crowd came up to my mom and other elders to pay respect and to reminisce about the couple's deceased parents. Those parents were there in stories, in spirit and in the living who knew them long ago.