Memorial Art that Captures Durable Love

Ray Methot had hoped to make it to the celebration of his 60th year Anniversary of his marriage to his high school sweetheart and his best friend, Kathie, the crowning jewel of a life well-lived. They had a very special relationship, the kind of love that poets try to capture. Ray and Kathie did everything together including laundry and shopping, going out for lunch and all the other usual things couples do…but they lived their love in a way that spoke to the fact that they didn’t want to be apart because they genuinely loved being in one another’s company. The beauty of the flower gardens that they tended together reflected the beauty of the love between them.

Their daughters, Kerry and Kersti, were fortunate to grow up under this umbrella of exquisite care that extended into their adult years. Kerry recalls Ray as “a great father” who took a genuine interest in her happiness. Even when she was off living on her own, she would find surprising little things he’d done for her while she was at work or away. It was as if he didn’t want her to forget that he also loved her when they were apart.

How profound is this kind of love? When Kersti married Rob, she had found in him a man much like her father. She knew what she was looking for because it had been modeled to her every day of her life. Love begets love and now it is the shelter for their child, Viviana. Ray adored his granddaughter and extended Viviana’s parents’ love for her with his ways of seeing her beauty as a person and expressing his appreciation for her. How he loved to spend time with her!

The photo above captured this special family one month before Ray received his diagnosis of esophageal cancer. He lived for about one more year, dying just months shy of that special wedding anniversary while tenderly cared for by Kathie with the support of his daughters and son-in-law. Like so many families in 2020-21, when he passed away during the social isolation of the Covid years, the family chose to delay his celebration of life for nine long months while they grieved privately. Yet, he deserved a great send off. Postponing was hard on everyone.

In the meantime, Kerry needed to do something to commemorate his passing and to hold her dad close to her. Kathie had shared a portion of the cremation remains with each of her daughters. A few months later, acting on the urge to do something, Kerry contacted Chris Nordin to ask if he could make a glass memorial sculpture that would contain some of the cremation remains. They began a back-and-forth design process.

“Chris was patient. He didn’t try to talk me into anything I didn’t want and he worked within my cost constraints.”

Chris waited until Kerry landed on the right choice, a choice that reflected her father’s love of beauty and his joy in cultivating the flower gardens. “He had a particular affection for red roses.” The blue vase with the glass, long-stemmed red rose felt perfect.

“Chris makes the process so easy,” Kerry reflects, “and his reverence for the person who’s deceased, his caring for you as an individual…he really did make it easy for me. He also asked for a picture of my dad so that he could hold that same reverence during the creation process.”

The glass rose is removeable so that the vase can occasionally be used for cut flowers. Both the vase and the rose incorporated a small portion of her father’s cremation remains. The vase is etched on the bottom with his name and the date of his passing.

When the time came to plan a memorial service, re-opening the wound of their grief, Kathie was concerned that too much time had passed. While she had continued to grieve, she was sure that other people would have moved on. She was deeply moved when over 100 people—friends and distant relatives—showed up to support their small immediate family with stories of Ray and how he impacted their lives without ever wanting to be noticed for his thoughtfulness.