Children decorated the cobblestones at the base of the Edgartown lighthouse with slipper shells as more than 100 people gathered for the 15th annual Ceremony of Remembrancel.
For the loved ones who gathered at the annual Ceremony of Remembrance on Saturday afternoon, their stories may have differed but their pain was the same — the grief of losing a child.
Parents and children gathered at the Edgartown Lighthouse for the 13th annual Ceremony of Remembrance. At the base of the lighthouse, granite stones are engraved with the names of children who have died.
The Children’s Memorial at the Edgartown Lighthouse was dedicated in 2001, with cobblestones under the lighthouse engraved with the names of children of all ages who had died.
On Saturday afternoon, under bright blue skies, Norma Mendoza posed for a picture next to the Edgartown Lighthouse. At her feet lay a gray stone inscribed with the names Rosaura and Rafael Freire Mendoza surrounded by flowers and small white Precious Moments figurines.
It rained in Vineyard Haven and in Oak Bluffs on Saturday. But in Edgartown the skies held out for a 1 p.m. service at the Edgartown Lighthouse. More than 60 people came together at the foot of the beacon, under dark and threatening skies for the Children’s Memorial, a remembrance. They came to hear stories, music and commemorate a lost child in their lives.
