Re-Membering

During one Constellation group I attended some years ago a woman - we'll call her Lise - who hadn't been at the monthly meetings for a while wanted to share a story.  The last time Lise had attended the group she had done a Constellation which involved her mother's family and in particular, her mother's sister, who had been killed in a car accident years earlier, when she was just a young woman and before the client, Lise, had been born.  
As many Constellations show, the Aunt who had died prematurely needed to be "re-membered" and brought back into the awareness of the family field.  Since that Constellation Lise had returned to her native France to visit her mother and other extended family.  When she got there she asked her mother about her Aunt's grave and expressed an interest in seeing it.  Her mother didn't want to go but a cousin Lise talked to said she would take her there.  The day arrived when they had planned to go but at the last minute the cousin was unable to drive her. As her daughter would otherwise have no way of getting there Lise's mother decided she would drive her to the grave site.  When they approached the grave Lise was shocked to see it completely overgrown with weeds.  She began to pull back the tangled vines and vegetation to better see the gravestone.  This simple act of showing up to re-member someone who belongs in the family system is a powerful movement born of respect and love.
Since her return to Canada, Lise's mother let her know that her Aunt's grave had since been completely cared for.  Family members had planted blossoming flowers and other plants, which were thriving there.
After telling her story, a man in the group remembered having represented this dead person in Lise's Constellation months earlier and expressed what a powerful experience that had been for him.  At the time he didn't know exactly the relationship to Lise or the story of the Aunt dying so young.  Now that he heard the history he shared that his own father's brother had also died young in a car accident; in fact this man had been named after his Uncle and so he felt a particularly strong bond with him. Representing Lise's Aunt in that Constellation and later hearing the effects that had rippled through her family now moved him - and the group - once more.
Those who are drawn to participate in Constellations are often the ones in the family system who act as a beacon for the lost, forgotten and excluded, those ones who cry to be seen and acknowledged in their fate.  As soon as the light is shone in their corner they feel peace; then their descendants are able to move forward serving Life with fresh purpose.