Memorial Tree event to give families chance to honor loved ones

CLOVIS — Plains Regional Medical Center Home Healthcare and Hospice will offer grieving families a chance to honor loved ones who passed away this year at the 15th annual Memorial Tree event on Sunday.

The event will include a photo slideshow honoring Plains Regional Medical Center patients and community members who passed away this year, as well as give families the chance to light a candle and place an ornament on the tree in memory of their loved ones.

Hospice social worker Nichole Olguin said in previous years the event has mostly been for the families of patients who have passed away, but this year Plains Regional Medical Center wanted to open it up for the whole community.

“In the Portales area and here in Clovis we’ve had some tragedies happen and I know that we feel like a lot of people are probably going to be going through a first (holiday) without a loved one for the first time and so we just really want to provide support for people in our community,” Olguin said.

The event will also include tips and resources for attendees about how to manage their grief during the holiday season.

“Grief is not something that one kind of just gets over, it’s something that people learn how to live with, it’s a variety of emotions, so we really want people in our community to feel supported,” Olguin said.

Olguin said they choose to hold the event around the holidays each year because it can be an especially difficult time for families who are faced with celebrating Christmas or Thanksgiving without their loved one for the first time.

“It’s really a good opportunity to build some camaraderie or build another support system because when you change your lifestyle you kind of want to identify with others that are going through what you’re going through,” Olguin said.

No RSVP is necessary to attend and the event is open to everybody in the community. Olguin said there are currently about 50 patients included in the photo slideshow, but they are also accepting photos from community members who passed away this year.

Photos to be included in the slideshow, along with full names and birth and death dates can be sent to [email protected] or dropped off at the Home Healthcare and Hospice department located at 2217 Dillon St. by 3 p.m. today.

The event will be held in the central lobby of the Plains Regional Medical Center Surgery Center located at 2421 W. 21st St. in Clovis from 2-4 p.m.