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When I Can't Say Goodbye In Person, What Do I Do?

By Laura Stroud

When I Can't Say Goodbye In Person, What Do I Do?

We never want to say goodbye. 

We don’t want to imagine we’ve already had those last moments with a loved one.

We push the thoughts into the dusty corners of our mind. Hoping the day will never come.

We know we won’t ever be ready. 

But What If The Day Does Come, And You Can’t Say Goodbye?

COVID-19 has changed our lives in more ways than we could have ever imagined, and the impacts will ripple into the rest of our existence. We see it affect our daily routine, our work and our interactions with the world.  Fortunately, most of us are shielded by the impact this virus is now having on funerals. And the final goodbye.

Most of us don’t see the limits on the number of mourners, the cancellation of the Wake, the social distancing that still must be observed in the service when touch and social interaction is needed the most.

It feels cruel.

It feels unnatural.

Grief is already lonely. Traditions we have trusted in and leaned on for centuries are being stripped away. 

It was heartbreaking to read the story of Tom Best. Anne, his wife of 51 years, was taken in an ambulance from their Derrylin, Northern Ireland home. She died of COVID-19 in the isolation ward of the hospital. He could not be there. There was no church ceremony, and Anne was buried watched on from a distance by a few mourners. Tom couldn’t even be there to say goodbye, self-isolating at home. Tom said to a local reporter, "It's just breaking my heart that I couldn't be there when she died or at the funeral." 

“All that we love deeply becomes part of us.” 
Helen Keller.

We never know what to say when someone passes.

We want to say we are sorry.
We want to say we are thinking of you. Sending sympathies.

We don’t want to say goodbye. 

Yet we know it is such an important part of the grieving process. We need the space to share stories and remember old times. Coming together to celebrate a life. It’s who we are. 

Can We Help You Say Goodbye?

Funerals during COVID-19 can be painfully lonely. But they don’t have to be. 

Here at Memorable Words, we have created a thoughtful and beautiful online funeral service. We have developed a way that allows you to say your final goodbye, to celebrate the life of your loved one and to share this with friends and family. 

It’s not the same as your family gathering together at a funeral.
It’s not the way you would have thought that saying goodbye would look like?

But it is a way that families are finding helps them say goodbye when they can’t say goodbye in person.

Online Funeral Services

Together we craft the stories of a loved one’s life into a eulogy of celebration. Capturing the essence of how they lived, who they were and what they loved. We believe the beautiful life every loved one’s life is special, unique and extraordinary.

Their story matters. So we create a beautiful place for your family to gather online together to say their goodbyes.

  • The eulogy can be read or listened to.

  • Family and friends can smile at the pictures carefully chosen and selected to sit alongside the stories.

  • You gather in your homes and read, view or listen, wherever you are. Reading or listening to the words that would have been said, you can now join in. Becoming a part of it.

  • You can make time for their final goodbye. But even more, you can contribute your words too, your stories and condolences.

  • You can do this together - online.  

We never want to say goodbye, but here at Memorable Words, we can help in this strange time to make it possible to say goodbye when saying goodbye is taken from you because of COVID-19.

Our hope is that it will help you feel less isolated. Less lonely and together - but apart. 

If you want to know more about how we can help you in these sad and difficult times, please contact us.


As a funeral celebrant, I understand the importance of saying goodbye in a relevant, personal, authentic and meaningful manner. Traditional funerals have been the way we have done that for centuries. COVID -19 takes that option away from some families. Difficult times call for new answers to old questions ... this is ours. It’s not the complete answer to facing the grief of losing someone you love. But we hope our Online Funeral Service can help you in some way to deal with that loss.