A service for people who have been bereaved is being held at Ripon Cathedral on Sunday 3 November 2019 at 3.30pm.
Known as a service of commemoration, thanksgiving and hope, it will be held in the tranquil surroundings of the quire.
It will be a time for peaceful reflection with music, hymns, readings and a short address by Canon Ailsa Newby.
She said: “People will be invited to take a card and write the name of a loved one they have lost on it and also to light a candle in their memory and place it on the high altar.”
Among the congregation will be Nina Harrison, a Reader at the cathedral who had been married to her husband, Colin, for 45 years.
Colin, a retired chemist who had been very active and highly respected within the cathedral, had started to lose weight in September. It was thought he had a duodenal ulcer but tests showed it was terminal cancer. He was told in November he had a year to live but he died two months later.
Earlier this year Nina gave a sermon at the cathedral about her experience of the five stages of grief – shock and denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance.
Nina said she was keen to attend the service “even though I know I shall cry.”
She added: “I shall remember not just Colin but also my mother and father who both died at this time of the year. I shall also pray for all people who are suffering from grief now.
“I believe the value of the service is that it will be an occasion for people to share both sorrow and hope and I shall be there for them just as people have been there for me.”