When you lose someone you love, a memorial garden can be a fitting tribute to the vibrant life they lived, and with the right memorial garden ideas, you can create a deeply meaningful and tranquil space that helps you remember the good times you shared as you work through your grief. From memorial stones to a memorial garden bench, there are many ways to remember your lost loved one and ensure that your garden is a soothing place where you feel closer to them.
A memorial or memory garden is a kind of living memorial, meaning that it is a landscaped space meant to memorialize a person who has passed. These gardens can offer a space for contemplation and reflection. Tending to plants can be healing, especially if you have a green thumb, and allows you to absorb yourself in their care each day. They provide a place to go after the funeral or memorial service is over to work through the complex and intense feelings that can follow.
The Gardens of Boca Raton Cemetary and Funeral Home also offers South Florida’s most desirable location for private family memorial real estate. It is the perfect location to reflect on the experiences you’ve shared with your loved one.
Why Memorials Help
Mourning rituals may change over time. What endures is the need to create spaces for remembering those who have passed. For thousands of years, humans have sought healing by building spaces for memorializing the departed. In the wake of a loss, spaces like memorial gardens help us make sense of what has happened, create meaning, and find a way forward. They contribute to a healthy grieving experience.
It’s essential to find healthy ways to grieve after a loss. Negative thoughts and feelings are normal and unavoidable when a death occurs, but one pitfall in the grieving process is becoming overly fixated on negative experiences, emotions, and thoughts. Getting stuck on the negative aspects can intensify and extend your grieving process.
Memorials allow us to create meaning out of what may feel like a senseless loss. They are a way to frame your thinking and give you perspective as you cope. Creating a memorial provides you an opportunity to tell a story about the loss that gives you comfort and provides a healthier point of view. You can use the space to highlight your lost loved one’s interests, contributions in life, and the good times you shared.
If other people visit the space, it serves as a reminder that you’re not alone in your grief, and there’s a community of mourners who share your feelings of loss. Living memorials like gardens also remind us of the beauty of nature, the natural cycle of life, and the inevitability of change and renewal.
How Gardening Can Help with Loss
Humans cope with loss by immersing themselves in the natural world. Walking in the woods or swimming in a lake can facilitate healing, making us feel replenished and restored. It can fortify and strengthen us to continue with our everyday lives. Gardeners know better than anyone just how life-affirming nature can be.
Gardens have so many lessons to teach us about life and loss. They require you to care for plants daily, which reminds you of the care that all living things need to thrive — including you.
Gardens also affirm the inevitable cycle of life and death that faces all living things. Gardening relies on decay and death so that new life can grow. The plants in your garden will inevitably decompose and become compost for next year’s plants. Death is harsh, but gardens allow us to see how it figures into a cycle of renewal.
The day-to-day activities of maintaining the garden provide a chance to get out of your head. While your memorial garden is ultimately a space for remembering the loss, the everyday task of caring for plants can also offer you a psychological break from grieving or your troubles. It’s also a way to carve out some time in your day to slow down, unplug, and forget about your to-do list.
Of course, even if someone else tends to your memorial garden, you can still get so many benefits from being in the space.
5 Tips for Your Memorial Garden
Memorial gardens offer a place to showcase the unique personality of your lost loved one and focus on the positive aspects of the rich life they lived. With our tips, you can create the perfect space for remembering the departed and facilitating a healthy grieving process.
1. Add some seating like a memorial bench to your garden.
If you want your garden to help you grieve, you need to spend time in it. An inviting bench makes it easier to do that, and an engraved memorial bench can make the seating feel unique and personalized.
2. Personalize it with touches that reflect the departed.
From filling the space with their favorite plants to adding garden ornaments or other items that reflect their interests, the garden should make you feel closer to the deceased. Anything that makes you feel their presence and won’t be damaged by the elements is a perfect choice for the space. A personalized garden stone is another great option.
3. Make it private if you can.
Grief can be messy, and we need private spaces to work through its most difficult emotions. At times, you may want to speak directly to the departed or cry and scream. Privacy makes it easier to do this. Of course, that may not be possible, and even if your garden is not private, you can still benefit from it.
4. Create a more tranquil space with wind chimes, lanterns, or water features.
Memorial gardens should be peaceful spots. You can make your space even more tranquil by adding features like wind chimes. Water fountains can make for a better sensory experience, adding the soothing sound of trickling water, and birdbaths attract various birds, making the space more peaceful to visit. Lighting can make it safer to visit your garden at night, which is often the time when grief shows itself.
5. Choose plants that are cheering and bright.
Just because the garden memorializes a loss that makes you feel sad doesn’t mean that it can’t also serve as a reminder of life’s beauty. Choose plants that make you feel happy.
Creating a memorial garden at your home is a touching and beautiful way to celebrate the memory of a loved one. The Gardens of Boca Raton Cemetary and Funeral Home also offers South Florida’s most desirable location for private family memorial real estate. It is the perfect location to reflect on the experiences you’ve shared with your loved one.
At The Gardens of Boca Raton, we are honored to have helped so many families craft a personalized end-of-life service that reflects the personality, accomplishments, contributions, and bonds of their lost loved ones. If you have lost someone, let us help you plan a dignified, meaningful service and find ways to cope once the service is over. Our funeral professionals and family grief counselors are experienced in assisting people in finding healthy and fitting ways to mourn and heal. Contact The Gardens today.
