This year has been difficult for everybody but what many people haven't thought about is the impact it has had on those who have lost someone.

There are families still waiting to have funerals and memorial services and many haven't been able to have the service their loved one would have wanted.

St George's Anglican Church is holding an All Souls' service on Sunday to help those who have experienced loss this year.

Vicar John Hebenton says they hold the service every year, close to All Souls' Day on November 2, but this year they wanted to make it more available to the wider community.

'You don't have to be particularly Christian or of faith to come. It's really a place for people to come and acknowledge their grief and say goodbye.”

He says 2020 has been a hard year for everyone but having to delay funerals or not being able to be with people in their final moments makes the grief process harder.

A woman who had been a parishioner at the church for 50 years died in April during lockdown and only two of her four children were allowed to be with her.

John says he and many of her friends from the church couldn't be at her bedside and he had to ask one of the children to say the final prayers, something he would normally do.

'All the normal stuff that would have happened for her and her family at that time just didn't happen. They had to wait three months before they could actually come to church and say goodbye properly in the way that they knew their mother wanted.”

Other families from the parish are waiting for the borders to open before they can hold a service.

He says every funeral he has run since the country has been in level two and beyond has had an online component for those who couldn't attend in person.

Sunday's service will be shorter and ‘less churchy'. People are invited to bring a photo of those they wish to remember and it will be more activity based without a communion, says John.

'This is a service that really is about remembering those who have who have died and to acknowledge our grief around that.”

The All Souls' service is on Sunday, November 1, at 9am at St George's Anglican Church in Gate Pa.