Now each time Carol Ouellette drives past Town Hall she'll think of her husband, Roger.

Carol and 125 other people gathered in the dark Thursday for the Hospice of the North Shore & Greater Boston's tree of light ceremony, to remember loved ones who have died.

They stood bundled in jackets on the lawn by the big dark evergreen and cupped candles in their hands.

Candlelight flickered and played over their faces.

Hospice Chaplain Sharon Dunbar-Link said the lights on the tree recall loved ones.

"The light that we hold also represents their spirit," she said.

She invited them to speak the names of those they had come to remember.

Carol's husband was in the hospital last year until Dec. 1.

That was the day hospice got him out and back to their home that he had built many years earlier.

He died in their house six days later.

That was important to him and to her, she said, that he not die in a hospital but at home, peacefully.

The tree lights came on.

The color flashed against the dark. Green, blue and white with a star on top.

Cathy Carberry sang Let There Be Peace, after which the crowd filed across the street.

They went in the First Church of Swampscott Congregational for a reception and to see a remembrance book.

Harpist Lily Press played and the crowd snacked on crackers, fruit and cheese.

Carol doesn't cook dinners anymore so the snacks made her supper.

The remembrance book has the names of those the people had come to remember.

Carol saw her husband's name. 

Seeing his name in print and seeing the tree lights were memorable, she said.

"I'll always think of him as I see that tree," she said.