A time to remember: Event focuses on giving comfort, strength

By Kristine Thomas

Gail Frassenei has been asked countless times by people how she has endured the death of her 18-year-old son, Alex.

Comfort and strength are her answers.

Comfort in knowing she has friends and family members who she can turn to in a moment’s need. Strength in her faith that whatever is happening in her life that it’s “the path I am suppose to be on.”

Alex Frassenei was a freshman at Oregon State University when he died in a car accident Nov. 22, 2007, Thanksgiving day.

“After Alex died, all these people kept asking me how I got through it,” she said. “I learned there are a lot of people who can’t get beyond the day it happened and they are encompassed in their pain.”

Believing she needed to do something to help the bereaved get through the holiday season, Frassenei decided last year to host “Celebration of Life,”  an evening of remembrance.

The nondenominational event will be held at First Christian Church at 5 p.m. Nov. 14. Frassenei said the evening includes poetry, music and reading the names and lighting a candle in memory of those who died.

The evening is designed to help individuals and families cope with the loss of a loved one and the feelings that the holidays can cause to bubble up, Frassenei said.

“This is a chance for people to honor and remember the person they have lost,” Frassenei said. “It lets people know they aren’t alone with their pain and sadness and gives them strength for the holiday season.”

Pastor Steve Knox is thankful for the work Frassenei has done to reach out to others.

“I think that for everyone who has been through the loss of a loved one that lighting a candle, hearing the person’s name and being with other people who have also suffered a loss helps to heal a heart in grief,” Knox said. “The holiday season is when feelings of grief are the most acute.”

Knox said the service is for all people regardless of their faith.

“It’s a very gentle and spirited event that I think would touch the heart of anyone who has been through this kind of loss,” Knox said. “It’s a time for the community to come together and remember people who have died and to honor them.”

At last year’s event, Frassenei said, there was a woman who had lost her son in as accident. For two years, she was wrapped in grief, so much so that she didn’t cry or talk with her daughter.

“After the event, she hugged her daughter for the first time in two years and that was the beginning of them healing their broken relationship,” Frassenei said. “They told me that wouldn’t have happened without our event.”

Unfortunately, many people hide their grief because they believe it is a stigma that can’t be discussed, she said.

“Too often people believe or are told that they should get over it and move on with their life,” she said. “You have to give yourself permission to feel whatever you need to feel on that certain day.”

She tells her children, Seth, 17, and Gabi, 12, that on the days they can’t function because the pain is unbearable, to stay in bed.

“The next day, they need to brush themselves off and get to it,” she said.  “By giving yourself permission to grieve, it rejuvenates you. If you never give yourself permission to grieve, it stays in there.”

“I believe people came away last year with the comfort and strength they needed.”