Oct. 6 event to honor COVID victims, frontline workers

By Jay Turner

The Canton casualties of COVID-19 and the many frontline workers and volunteers who have selflessly served the community throughout the pandemic will be memorialized and honored as part of a special “Evening of Remembrance” scheduled for next Wednesday, October 6, at 6 p.m. on the grounds of the Armando Recreation Center.

The town-sponsored event, which is open to the entire community, will feature readings, musical performances and prepared remarks, and will culminate with the lighting of luminarias and the dedication of a tree in memory of all of the lives lost from COVID-19. There will be one luminaria lit for each Canton resident who has died, plus one additional luminaria to represent those whose deaths may have gone unreported or undiagnosed.

“Our community has lost 85 residents to COVID,” noted Select Board member Lisa Lopez. “And Canton residents have lost an untold additional number of family and friends who lived outside Canton. This event is intended as a show of unity, both to collectively grieve the loss of so many loved ones, but also to celebrate the extraordinary work of the professionals and volunteers who have helped us cope with our many challenges. This will be a time to pause, to reflect on precious memories of lives lost, and also for gratitude.”

“The remembrance,” added Diane Tynan, the town’s director of Elder & Human Services, “is an important day to recognize, remember, and honor all of our loved ones, neighbors, and friends who were taken too soon due to COVID-19 while showing support to their loved ones and friends. It is a time to come together to support one another and share some hope.”

In addition to the lighting of the luminaria, which will encircle the memorial tree, the remembrance component will also feature a moment of silent reflection, during which time church bells will ring throughout the town.

Event emcee George Comeau, who helped to plan the evening in conjunction with a small team of community leaders, emphasized that even the remembrance component of the program is intended to be uplifting and to promote a sense of unity and gratitude.

“This is meant to be sacred and it’s meant to commemorate, but it’s not meant to be sad,” he said. “It is our sense to create some symbolism with the evening, some reflection points with the evening, and a spirit of thanksgiving.”

At the same time, Comeau recognized that these 85 people were “our neighbors and our friends,” and in many cases, due to pandemic restrictions, “nobody could go to their funerals and nobody could go visit them in the hospital.”

The ceremony, therefore, is a way to collectively remember these individuals while also acknowledging all of the lives that have been saved throughout the pandemic and the dedication and commitment of the town’s many unsung heroes.

Comeau said one poem in particular, Kahlil Gibran’s On Joy and Sorrow, which will be read at the event by a student speaker, really captures the spirit of the evening and the “dual sides of loss and celebration” that will be felt among attendees.

Comeau said all of the speakers, in fact, will be “speaking from the heart with love and gratitude.” And remarks will be intentionally brief, with the entire event lasting no more than one hour.

“This is meant to be very engaging and fitting for what we’ve been through,” said Comeau.

“Nothing about this evening is political,” he added. “It’s really all about the people who have left us and the people who are still serving. This is a program that is for everyone, and a program that I believe is very reflective of our community and our shared values.”

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