ABSTRACT
People commemorate emotionally significant events from their public and personal past. Commemoration ceremonies were held in churches, at the foot of war monuments, at places were people had been shot or the executed buried. Commemoration of public events like disasters and war are usually organized by governments, city councils, or citizen committees. No death of a loved person ever fully becomes a settled fact. The deaths represent unfinished business for additional and subtle reasons. The emotions that commemorations arouse are often sought and desired. Public ceremonies are confronted with distaste, one shuts off for the emotions, or withdraws into one's home. The ritual supports coming to terms with one's emotions–insofar as they achieve that–also that in social context, when one pours out one's emotions, one is accepted in one's role as an emotionally affected person. One is to render the commemorated persons present, in some sense. Commemorations satisfy bonding and the need to belong.
