The Good Funeral Guide

Posted by Sweetpea

Am I alone in sensing a nasty niff?  The vague whiff, perhaps, of a fashionable diktat in the air?  I know it’s not really the done thing, but I have to confess to feeling a little oppressed by the phrase ‘celebration of life’.  

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a celebratory kinda gal.  Some of the ‘best’ funerals in which I’ve happily taken part have been wonderful, sometimes exuberant, expressions of love and gratitude to the deceased.  Great, and if there’s much to celebrate it gladdens my heart to be involved.

But I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of a ‘celebration of life’ becoming a lazy by-line for secular or civil funerals.  I see the phrase bandied about – sometimes in print and sometimes without much thought or insight – by funeral directors, celebrants and elsewhere.  But we don’t do lazy by-lines, do we?  We have a much more interesting role.  We meet people where they are, and much more importantly we make no assumptions about where that may lead us.

Have you examined some of the publicity material/information leaflets to which the bereaved are exposed?  Confident statements such as ‘I will help you create a ceremony which will celebrate your loved one’s life…..’   Isn’t that rather prescriptive?  And aren’t prescriptive notions what civil funerals, in particular, were conceived to counteract?  If we are going to put people in a box (literally and metaphorically) then let’s at least allow them to choose their own box and help to fashion it into something which actually suits them.

I’ve worked with nearly 700 families, and occasionally someone might say ‘we want a real celebration of mum’s life’.  They’ve heard the phrase, thought about it and mean what they say – and usually with good, sound reasons.  Sometimes, however, I get the sneaking feeling that they’ve heard that phrase and almost feel they should be saying it to me.  That’s the modern way, after all – we’ve chucked the vicar overboard, and this is what this civil malarkey is all about.  Celebration.

Well, no.  Not necessarily.  What about the many bereaved who have ambivalent or hateful feelings towards the deceased?  I went to visit a family a while ago, and the son’s opening words to me were ‘well, you might as well know the only reason we’re going to the funeral is to make sure that the old bastard’s dead.’  As I worked with the family over the next week or so, I could see he might have a point.  Their stated aim when I first met them was to pour their father’s ashes down the nearest drain.  I’m no magician.  We talked.  They were given a safe space to express themselves.  We fashioned a ceremony which even managed to acknowledge the one or two kinder moments that any of them could remember.  I hope that in 10, 20 years time, when they re-read the ceremony, they at least won’t be ashamed of what was enacted.  And possibly could even be proud of what they did.  

To have gone into that family’s front room with any preconceptions would have done them a grave disservice.  And how must such a family feel when they pick up an information leaflet, only to be told that a eulogy is central to a funeral, and that eulogy is a ‘celebration’?  Neither of which has to be true.

The reason I love my job so much is precisely this kind of variation in experience.  We help people find their way to saying whatever it is that needs expressing at THAT funeral.  It may be celebratory to the point that ideas for poetry, words of gratitude, story-telling, prayer and praise, dancing, singing, eating and drinking come pouring out.   It may be that only the hard-won clipped phrases, which feel like they’ve been chipped out of granite, can be elicited.  And anything in between, of course.  But, find the words we do, and it’s precisely that challenge which makes our job so interesting.  

So, a plea to fellow celebrants in particular.  Free yourself to the real purpose of what you do, and please shed the prescriptive wording and thinking.  You might surprise yourself.  

PS they didn’t pour him down the drain.

This is the time of year when the Reaper takes a break and catches some rays, giving undertakers a chance to do housekeeping chores, and celebrants a chance to starve. There’s not a lot going on out there. I can’t begin to tell you what a quiet week it’s been. These are the best I could find. 

The thankless business of teaching funeral directors to be businesslike - http://on.ft.com/nJIxiN

Man heart-attacks while building funeral pyre for dead relative. Pragmatic solution: both burned together - http://bit.ly/nn1EHZ

“Old-school undertakers dictated funerals, the bereaved could only take it or leave it” Taiwan then and now. Lessons. http://bit.ly/qn7B3s

Pastor caught in bed with his brother’s wife claims “I went to fetch her so we could go to a funeral.” Fined 8 cattle. http://bit.ly/pL5zY8

A proper gypsy funeral. Undertakers dream of getting one of these. Who got this one? http://bit.ly/pxbtBp

‘FIELD TRIP: Day of Brains in Jars.’ Doncha just love the Morbid Anatomy blog? http://bit.ly/qPMffn

“Independent funeral homes thrilled cos big corp prices are driving consumers to independent FDs.” Ditto in the UK. http://bit.ly/petQ76

Proposed crem: “Imagine, at a cafe, you see a bunch of coffins burnt into the air.” Viva death in the community! http://bit.ly/pPhnaO

Rottweiler’s funeral pyre burns master’s house down -http://bit.ly/nGynCJ

Viking funeral replete with flaming arrows to honour those lost at sea - http://bit.ly/otF56l

They’ve been visiting the grave for 20 years, and now they’re told their mum isn’t actually there - http://bit.ly/p7bDqy

I’d love a copy of this – 600+ FDs financially analysed – market share, trends, industry averages. Tad pricey though -http://bit.ly/nlD8AK

Make up for what you lack with a PR stunt. Nice one, Co-op.http://bit.ly/pPzK4Q

Who says you can’t buy journalists? Dignity can -http://tgr.ph/p8CwKr

Dead guy alphabetised at his funeral - http://tinyurl.com/6aor3nc

Source: Postsecret

Posted by Moss

At the risk of seeming rather tabloid, especially during a difficult period for the press, we recently produced a list of tips for people who are arranging or planning a funeral. I presented this to a group of hospice workers and bereavement professionals who had a number of good suggestions to make, so I am hoping that others will be able to add to the list so that we can make it a TOP TWENTY or more… 

1. Don’t panic – there’s no need to be rushed into any decisions. S l o w  things down and allow yourself to take stock of what has happened.

2. Carry on caring for the person who has died and take time to say goodbye.

3. Don’t waste money on things that don’t matter; concentrate on what really counts.

4. Sing songs at the funeral to help people to join in with the ceremony; ask someone to lead the singing.

5. Keep things simple and natural – this can bring beautiful results and can highlight the importance of small individual things.

6. Ask for and accept help – many people would love to help, so give them permission to do so.

7. Consider poems – they can often put into words what we find hard to say.

8. Don’t be a spectator – bear the coffin, decide on music, poems, and memories for the service.

9. Make it personal – include a favourite perfume or flower, photographs or paintings, vehicle, sport, club or hobby – take the children and the dog too.

10. Start now – Don’t wait until it’s hard to talk about it; write down your latest thoughts.

Please help us add to and improve this list…

Posted by Charles Cowling

Extracted from an article in yesterday’s New York Times: 

I hope you had the chance to read and reread Dudley Clendinen’s splendid essay, “The Good Short Life”. Clendinen is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S. If he uses all the available medical technology, it will leave him, in a few years’ time, “a conscious but motionless, mute, withered, incontinent mummy of my former self.” 

Clendinen’s article is worth reading for the way he defines what life is. Life is not just breathing and existing as a self-enclosed skin bag. It’s doing the activities with others you were put on earth to do. 

But it’s also valuable as a backdrop to the current budget mess. This fiscal crisis is about many things, but one of them is our inability to face death — our willingness to spend our nation into bankruptcy to extend life for a few more sickly months. 

Years ago, people hoped that science could delay the onset of morbidity. We would live longer, healthier lives and then die quickly. This is not happening. Most of us will still suffer from chronic diseases for years near the end of life, and then die slowly. 

Obviously, we are never going to cut off Alzheimer’s patients and leave them out on a hillside. We are never coercively going to give up on the old and ailing. But it is hard to see us reducing health care inflation seriously unless people and their families are willing to do what Clendinen is doing — confront death and their obligations to the living. 

My only point today is that we think the budget mess is a squabble between partisans in Washington. But in large measure it’s about our inability to face death and our willingness as a nation to spend whatever it takes to push it just slightly over the horizon. 

Lessons applicable to the UK, obviously. Read the whole article in the NYT here. If you missed Dudley Cleninden’s piece, read it; it’s brilliant and important. Here. 

Going Nowhere

Long way back home

Posted by Belinda Forbes

As a secular funeral celebrant, I’ve noticed a growing trend for colour at funerals – this could be a general request to wear bright colours or a suggestion to wear something in a particular colour.  At one young man’s funeral, the theme was yellow: as well as people wearing yellow ties and scarves, there were yellow flowers covering the coffin; each person who spoke held a sunflower and we all sang Coldplay’s Yellow.  At another, the coffin was purple and adorned with purple feathers and balloons – the mourners were dressed in shades of lilac and purple.  

This can, of course, be fraught with difficulties – many people take great comfort from tradition and the “respect” of wearing black.  Six people carrying the coffin wearing Man U shirts with the deceased’s name on the back is not for everyone.  And what about the people who didn’t realise that the dress code was “wear something red”?  Suddenly the respectful black tie looks out of place.

However, as I look out from the lectern, it is surprisingly moving to see all the men wearing pink ties.  As we become used to each funeral being a unique and personal event, we will make sure to find out if there is a dress code.  Instead of feeling uncomfortable in our colourful clothes on a drizzly day outside the crematorium, we can feel proud that we are honouring the wishes of the person whose life we are there to commemorate.

Belinda Forbes is a secular celebrant working in Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey. Her website is:

www.thinkceremonies.com

Source

Posted by Pippa Wilcox

I wish I could tell you that the real-life stories portrayed in Nell Dunn’s play Home Death are over-dramatised.  But they aren’t.  

It seems to be a terrifyingly random lottery out there in terms of whether or not you will stumble across the sort of care package which will result in a ‘good’ death at home – which is the aim of each of the characters we are introduced to in this beautiful, moving, unflinchingly honest 90-minute piece.  

Such a thing as a good death does exist and when someone dies, if they and the people who love them believe it to be as positive an experience as is possible in the circumstances, the difference it makes is profound.

A ‘bad’ death leaves a gnawing, corrosive legacy for those left behind.  A good death results in a sense of pride and — amongst the complexities of grief — a thankful absence of guilt, remorse and torment about the decisions made in the approach to those final breaths.

I know this from speaking with the 200 or so families I’ve worked with in my role as a humanist funeral celebrant.  I’m inspired by hearing about those endings which we would all wish for ourselves and the people we love; and I’m haunted by the ones you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

In Home Death we hear of 7 deaths following cancer and we are spared no detail, no matter how uncomfortable.  We learn of the sense of loneliness and abandonment experienced by the friends and family of the dying; of the steel that appears to have replaced the heart of a doctor attending a dying man; of the desperately chaotic, disorganised and interminable scrabbling around for morphine; of the blood-spattered hospital ward; of the women who might be sent to sit with you in the night and whose only contribution to your well-being is to silently dispense medication and note in a book that they have done so; of the ridiculous insistence that you cannot die in your own home without a “horrible, scary, cold hospital bed.”

We learn that to organise a good death at home for someone we love often requires near-superhuman levels of determination, tenacity, time, energy, courage and an ability to rage against the machine.  And it would seem that above all else, access at the right time to morphine and anti-nausea medication is fundamental and all too often absent.  The NHS does not come off well in this piece.

Nell Dunn, now in her 70′s and renowned for giving a voice to ‘ordinary’ people in her work has assembled this play from her and her lover’s own experience and the experiences of others who had cared for a dying loved one at home. These true stories are told with commitment and integrity by the 11 strong acting ensemble.  There isn’t a weak link amongst them.  The production and performances are pared down, stripped back and utterly convincing.  

It is not wall-to-wall bleakness.  Although it is not so much the more positive stories that you leave the theatre dwelling on, there are some good deaths here as well as some air and light breathed into this piece.  The George and Diana Melly pairing and the trio of Mick, Lisa and Mary in particular provide some welcome laughter and the exchange between Juliet and James lets us off the hook for a while – the other five stories are told directly to the audience.

The Finborough seats might not be the most comfortable but this is one of those venues that makes me feel proud to be a Londoner.  The shamelessly intimate space, the courageous programming choices, the exceptional performing talent which it attracts, the hip and truly sweet theatre and bar staff, the very respectable loos, the (new) air-conditioning, the Firezza pizza which you can have waiting for you when the show’s over and the brilliant array of wines you can order by the glass… what’s not to like?

If you are a stakeholder in palliative care you must see this; if you believe that forewarned is forearmed you must see this. It’s hard to imagine a more effective means of highlighting the issues we all need to be aware of if we, or someone we love, would like to die well at home.

Home Death is currently playing at the Finborough Theatre for only 6 performances over 3 weeks.  Further performances may be added: http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/productions/2011/production-home-death.php

Pippa Wilcox is a humanist celebrant who conducts funerals and memorial services for those who have chosen to live without religion:  http://www.humanistcelebrant.com

Posted by Charles Cowling

According to the blurb: 

Rare, three-strand 28″ (or so) inch necklace made of antique brass beads from Northern India. Originally used in funeral pyres, these beads are then gathered from the ashes and restrung.  

Buy them here.