In Grief: Dreading Mom's Stone-Setting Ceremony

[Reviewed and updated September 2, 2025]

Believe you can and you're halfway there.  ~ Theodore Roosevelt

A reader writes: Today is 9 months to the date and day that my dear mother passed away. I miss her more than words can express, but I know you know exactly what I mean as you can relate it to your loved one that has passed on.

Anyway, it is customery in the Jewish religion to have a "Stonesetting" within the first year after a loved one has passed on. It's a simple ceremony at the gravesite that dedicates the headstone to the loved one who has passed. There are a few passages read and whoever wants to say anything can. When the headstone is placed, which is prior to the ceremony, there is a piece of muslin over the stone and sometime in the ceremony my brothers and I take it off. I am DREADING this!!!