‘Connecting and reaffirming’
Over 100 cars drive past the Bray home to pay their respects to the family Thursday. The family was unable to organize a funeral for Tammy Bray due to state-wide restrictions on gatherings, so the community found a way to celebrate her life. (JENNIFER/PASSARO Press)
Car procession honors life of Tammy Bray
More than 100 cars drove slowly through Dalton Gardens Thursday evening, blasting 1970s rock ‘n’ roll in honor of Tammy Bray.
Every car was adorned in purple balloons and twinkly lights, as those who were touched by Bray’s life drove slowly past her home. They drove to honor her memory in an unprecedented time of social distancing.
Tammy Bray loved extravagantly. When she passed on March 28 at age 61, her family lost not only their mother, wife, and grandmother, but they lost the ability to celebrate her life with the tradition and ritual of a funeral.
“There’s nothing about Mom that was a stay-inside-and-watch-out-the-window kind of person,” Sarah Bradshay said. “She wanted to be in the middle of whatever was going on.”
Bray taught scripture and language arts to junior high students at Lighthouse Christian Academy for 20 years. Her coworkers couldn’t sit by and do nothing. Catherine Scheiber and Marliss Sand helped organize the procession to show Tammy’s family how much she is missed.
“The family is grieving and the community is grieving, but they don’t have an outlet for their grief,” said Sand, who now works as an office manager for English Funeral Chapel. “This is a way for them to say we care and to express their grief and support the family.”
Amber Bray said the loss of the ritual is small compared to the loss of her mother-in-law, but she feels without the tradition of a funeral it is a huge loss for her children.
“There’s always a big comfort, because all the family comes,” Amber Bray said. “There’s something about that ritual that is connecting and reaffirming.”
As the sky flared pink with the setting sun, the Bray family stood on its porch, spilling into the yard as car after car drove past. The air was a cacophony of reassurance that even as people can’t gather together, they are still here for one another.
When the last car turned and the street was empty, the family held one another and cried. A man played the guitar in a neighbor’s driveway, his voice rising in the dark like a hymn. The faraway car horns from the procession could still be heard as people returned to their homes.