I read a fantastic article, “Honor Your Loved One’s Memory with a Favorite Foods Dinner” from the Grief Digest Quarterly Magazine. Although born out of a family tragedy, the author, Harriet Hodgson, came up with a great idea and I’m so thankful she shared it with us.

Harriet was helping care for her dying father-in-law when her daughter was killed in a car crash, two days before her father-in-law died. Reeling from their losses, her family decided they could only grieve one loss as a time, and as her daughter was a young mother, all of the resources went to mourning her. The family members decided to have a memorial service for her father-in-law at a later date. Although their circumstance brought about this meal, it’s a great idea for honoring the life of a loved one, including anniversaries of the death, or milestone birthday’s the loved one would have celebrated.

Her Father-in-law’s favorite thing was to have dinner with his family. One of his most famous saying was, “When are we going to have fat and salt?” So in order to honor him they decided to have a Favorite Foods Dinner. There were three rules:

1. The food preparation and clean-up had to be easy.

2. Fun had to be included.

3. The dinner had to be meaningful.

They placed a large photo of “Dad” to greet people as they walked in the door. They used paper products for easy clean up. Harriet typed up some of his favorite sayings and passed them out for other to read, of course most were humorous. They ended the evening with a slide show and photos of Dad with his family. What a nice way to honor the memory of a loved one.