This Yellowknife woman is offering to help care for your loved one's grave site during COVID-19

Cailey Mercredi is one of many Mercredi's who carefor her grandparents' grave sites at the Lakeview Cemetery in Yellowknife. She sweeps up the grounds, clears wind blown foliage and tends to any mementos or decorations laid at the site.

It's an important part of Mercredi's routine.

"I never got to meet my grandpa," Mercredi told CBC Northbeat host Juanita Taylor. "He died a few months before I was born and my grandma, she died in 2015 and I have a really great connection with her."

"It's a very important duty that I have as her granddaughter to just carry on what I know she would have wanted for herself and what I know definitely she wants for grandpa, as well."

But during the COVID-19 pandemic,Mercredihad more time to spend tending to the memory of grandparents and she realized other sites could use a little care and maintenance too.

Watch the full interview with Mercredi at the cemetery here:

Cailey Mercredi tends to gravesites in Yellowknife

4 years ago

Duration 6:19

After caring for her grandparents' cemetery plot in Yellowknife, Cailey Mercredi decided to expand and tend to sites for those too far away to do it themselves.

Virtual graveside visits

She reached out on the YK Memories Facebook Page to see if anyone away from town would like her to tend to graves in Yellowknife. She offered to spruce up sites, and send a photo.

"I just thought, well, it's so easy for me to be here," Mecredi said.

"And I know if I didn't live in Yellowknife, how much I would appreciate just seeing a picture and having someone just stand at my grandparents' plot and just take a couple breaths and think of me."

So far, Mercredi says more than 15 people have taken her up on her offer.

She's had some special requests including live streams from grave sites for distant survivors.

"I had a couple of moments where I FaceTimed with people to just be here and hear the noises and see the breeze," Mercredi said.

"There was geese flying by one day, which was a lovely moment for one daughter and her dad in the [Veterans'] Field of Honour."