For some, Christmas is a time to grieve

PROVIDENCE — Andrew Hernandez grew up in Pawtucket with his grandmother, Berta.

She had a talent for cooking up rice and beans Colombian-style and a burning desire to make sure none of her 9 children and 15 grandchildren were hungry.

“She always remembered if we hadn’t eaten yet,” the 25-year-old architect recalled Sunday afternoon, following a special ceremony at Swan Point Cemetery for those who grieve during the Christmas season.

Twenty members of Berta Estrada’s family took seats in Swan Point's chapel, moist-eyed and wondering how they will get through their first Christmas season without Berta, who died in April at age 82.

The “Light Up A Life” remembrance ceremony on Sunday afternoon, arranged by Hope Hospice & Palliative Care, filled two buildings at Swan Point.

It was the first of four such events to be held around Rhode Island and organizers have acquired 1,000 snowflake-shaped ornaments for participants to hang on Christmas trees as part of the remembrance.

Berta’s grandson Andrew took hold of one of the ornaments, which are flat and wooden, and wrote a message on it in Spanish with a black marker.

“Grandma, I love and miss you,” he wrote.

The ceremony offered a mixture of readings, some candle-lighting and a reflection by a Warwick woman who told a rich and emotional story about meeting her soon-to-be husband in New York City, falling in love with him, and living together in Rhode Island.

Arline Elman had many in the sniffling crowd laughing as she told them about her first date with Norman A. Elman, a Rhode Islander with a sonorous voice, who had rung her on the phone and told her he was calling from Camelot. The date was a Paul Anka performance at the Warwick Musical Theatre.

When Norman Elman briefly left his seat during the intermission, an older woman leaned over and told Arline that other women had sat in the same seat before her. Elman, the older woman said, had a new date every Saturday night: one had been from Connecticut, one from New Jersey, another from Boston and another from Long Island.

“I said, 'OK, I’ll get this guy, I’ll let him fall in love with me and then I’ll say goodbye,'” Arline Elman told her audience.

She didn’t say goodbye — not right then.

“He was never moody or depressed,” she said of Norman, who owned Olneyville Tire in Providence. “He was self-confident and never intimidated by anyone. I felt totally safe and protected.”

Elman died after a long series of illnesses in March 2015. His death came some time after the couple had their most memorable final time enjoying each other out on the town, what Arline describes as her last date with Elman. They had gone to another Paul Anka performance.

Andrew Estrada hangs a tree ornament in memory of his late grandmother at the ceremony at Swan Point Cemetery. [THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / MARK REYNOLDS]

B. Estrada

On Sunday, based on guidance offered by former Vice President Joseph Biden, Arline Elman shared a hopeful forecast with her audience:

“One day when you think of your loved one, a smile will come to your lips before a tear falls from your eyes,” she said. “...It happened to me and it will happen to you.”