About Rami’s Heart Memorial

Rami’s Heart Memorial shares space with both digital and physical commemoration, utilizing virtual portals to accept names of loved ones lost to COVID-19 while creating a physical save haven for mourners. In September of 2020, Rima Samman placed painted yellow shells in the shape of a heart in the sand of a nearby beach to remember her brother, Rami. Word spread throughout New Jersey and quickly the nation about the memorial, prompting a flurry of online submissions. Seeking an alternative, permanent location, for the protection and preservation of the names, Rima and her partner Travis eventually teamed up with Allaire Community Farm to create the first permanent national memorial for those lost to COVID-19.

The memorial is partially sheltered within an enclosed structure on Allaire Community Farm, which helps protect it from the elements. Inside, collages of stones and yellow seashells comprise a dozen large hearts, each stone painted with the name of a person who passed away from COVID-19. As the memorial has grown, it’s expanded past the confines of the structure: names continue to be etched on heart-shaped slabs which are embedded in the ground outside. Mourners brought flowers and photos of their loved ones during the event, which they placed near the respective stones and hung from the structure’s ceiling.

Left: One of the full hearts encased with rocks, flowers, and photos of lost loved ones. Photo by Page Gavin. Right: Mourners walking through the memorial shelter prior to the event, putting up photographs of their loved ones. Photo by Sebastian Sirais.

Third Annual Lighting Ceremony, March 19, 2023

Though the ceremony was scheduled to begin at 4:00pm, our team arrived an hour early to have the chance to explore the site and introduce ourselves to Rima and her team of volunteers. We soon saw other attendees trickle in – first a few at a time, then several dozen, then over one hundred, many of them bundled in winter clothes and carrying blankets or folding chairs. In the end, nearly 150 people gathered on the grassy field outside the memorial to listen to the speakers share their experiences with COVID-19 loss. As the event began, the attendees – both young and old, some with children – rose for the national anthem.

The event was livestreamed and a recording of it can be viewed on Rami’s Heart Facebook page.

“Please know that I just as one of the many healthcare workers out there will never forget the weight and feel of your loved ones’ hands as we held them as they passed because we never left them alone.”

Megan Gardner, Medical Speech Pathologist (speech starts at 26:52 in livestream)

“I could not and still don’t understand how this happened to a fit, healthy man of 49, who loved profusely. I sat on floor of my bedroom, still 30 days sick from COVID myself, holding my phone, thinking of Terrence, as I envisioned his lips moving only 12 hours before telling me he loved me on a Zoom call. The air from my ceiling fan hit my face. I remember it vividly, as I screamed and screamed in disbelief when I got the call. My 8-year-old, who is now 10 (and tall for his age), stood at the top of the stairs, paralyzed with the sounds of my screams, as I crumpled to the floor. Our 16-year-old daughter rocked me like a baby. And my 19 -year-old held onto me and kept saying how sorry he was. They both cried for me as I continued to scream and also realizing the loss of their own dad.”

Ebony James, who lost her husband Terrence James on February 19, 2021 (speech starts at 40:30)

Our team’s contribution to the day

Our team was honored to be asked to share a short speech on behalf of our work and its relation to memorial practices such as Rami’s Heart. After hearing from two mayors, a health care worker, and the owners of Allaire Community farm, our student representative, Sarah Frieman, went up to the podium to share a few remarks (minute 33 in the livestream). In the speech, we sought to communicate the importance of memorialization efforts from our anthropological perspective. We shared the way we recognize COVID-19 mourning as distinct: “Family members couldn’t be with their loved ones as they died; they couldn’t perform the rites of mourning together; they couldn’t embrace one another; they couldn’t eat together, sit together, cry together.” We also wanted to remark on the originality of Rami’s Heart: “It’s neither exclusively virtual nor solely physical. It’s a beautiful amalgam of both. It began with stones and clam shells on a beach, hearts that expanded because word spread across social media, drawing mourners—total strangers from throughout the US and eventually the world—into the physical/digital space of this memorial.”

The event was covered by local media, including this piece by Tommy Watters of the Star News Group.