Love and Funerals in the Age of Zoom

[JW Insider 5,798]

I just attended a memorial service for my uncle yesterday. At least 800 persons tried to attend through Zoom. My uncle was part of a large extended family. About 400 stayed for the comments afterward, and they lasted for more than 2.5 more hours, making the entire memorial about 3.5 hours long. There were attendees from all over the world, including Dubai and China, but mostly Californian and South Carolina. Based on statistical averages there is probably a fair chance that at least one of the other 16,700 members of this forum was also on that same Zoom call, assuming most of those members are JWs.

The brother who gave the talk continued to "host" the whole time. My aunt and a cousin allowed for anyone to speak who wanted to say something. Dozens of persons had examples to share of his sense of humor, funny incidents that happened in field service, and a lot of nice things to say about his sincerity and kindness when it came to shepherding. He had been a circuit overseer and substitute circuit overseer for a good part of his life.

This second portion of course is mostly a new Zoom thing for us, where the personal experiences are offered, and even children sometimes speak about their grandpa and great-grandpa. But I saw so much love coming through, and no one seemed to want the experience to stop.

It's only the second of such memorial services I have attended like this, but I have heard of another one a month ago.

Just looking for comments, I guess, on whether others have experienced this. I think it's a very good thing, and I was glad that some non-Witness relatives could share this experience.

[The Librarian 3,697]

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[Anna 2,509]

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Just looking for comments, I guess, on whether others have experienced this.

I am glad you shared this. I had a very similar experience just this past week with a memorial for an older sister that died. I was so impressed with the experience that I was almost moved to want to share it on here but then I thought nobody would be interested. So I'm glad you brought it up. 

Our memorial had only half the attendance of yours, but we had people I had never met, from various  states as far as NY and California. It was very interesting meeting everyone. The memorial talk was one of the best I had heard. It was presented by a relative, who was not an elder (although he had been an elder at one time). The family chose him because they felt he knew the sister the best. Although there was the regular "witnessing" part of the talk, it only occupied about 10% of the total. The rest was all about the sister's life and how we are all looking forward to seeing her again. Both prayers were again, very personal. Afterwards we were put into "breakout" rooms, to meet and talk with the family, and with each other. It was really nice,  and I too felt the love and genuine friendship and brotherly connection.

The whole thing lasted much longer than normal, nobody seemed to want to leave. We were expecting to be on for an hour, but we stayed on for well over 2.

[Emma Rose 108]

15 hours ago, Anna said:

I am glad you shared this. I had a very similar experience just this past week with a memorial for an older sister that died. I was so impressed with the experience that I was almost moved to want to share it on here but then I thought nobody would be interested. So I'm glad you brought it up. 

I, for one, would be interested and I'm sure many others would be too 💐