Consoling with stones from the heart

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Shen-Chia Chu
  • 436th AW Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Headstones are chosen for memorials as a symbol of mourning and remembrance for a loved one. The name is engraved into the stone and placed at the cemetery.

For Holly Lindquist, she feels one way to honor the men and women who have fought and sacrificed their lives serving their country deserved to be remembered through comfort stones.

Ms. Lindquist makes comfort stones that resemble a part of the gravestone, and it is a way of bringing comfort to the mourning and remembrance of the deceased.

It all began one day down by the beach.

"I was talking to God, asking for a way to be able to show my gratitude for those who were in the service as I was picking up some of the stones off the shore," said Ms. Lindquist.

That is when she decided how she would honor the deceased that come home from overseas to the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center.

"I received news that a Soldier from my hometown was killed in action overseas while serving in Afghanistan and I decided I would honor him by making stones for his family and friends," she said.

But Ms. Linquist was not able to meet the family at Dover Air Force Base, Del. and the service was to be held in Maine, so she drove 10 hours to Maine to find the Soldier's family before the funeral.

"I didn't know this Soldier, but I thought this would be a beautiful way to honor the servicemember coming home. All I knew of him was that he went to my high school and graduated a different year," she said.

Ms. Lindquist said she just so happened to be staying at the same hotel as the Soldier's in-laws since there were not many hotels in the area.

"The in-laws invited me to the Soldier's parents' home and I presented the stones to them in a red, white and blue basket," she said.

This was not the first time Ms. Lindquist had made stones for people she did not know personally, she reads obituaries for local Delawareans and decides to make stones for their families.

"I didn't know who they were, but I made it for them and gave it to their loved ones to honor their death," she said.
Ms. Lindquist has made more than 600 comfort stones for several occasions and for 25 funerals and she says she makes them because it is something that comforts her through grief.

"Grieving is hard, it is something my family has dealt with since I was a child," said Ms. Lindquist, whose father died when she was 13 years old. "Many people very close to me have passed away and these stones are mainly for comfort because I think it would have been nice to have them for myself when I was grieving the loss of my loved ones."

"I pray that people find the stones as a type of comfort in the time of their need, in the time they need it the most," she said.