The Good Funeral Guide

I’m indebted to Quigley’s Cabinet for this. It’s by Sam Jinks, who currently lives and works in Melbourne where he spends his time creating hyper-realistic sculptures out of silicon. Read more here.

Undertakers seek to be well thought of in all sorts of oblique and coded ways. Instead of proclaiming a USP and telling the world why they reckon they’re the best, they do stuff they hope will have a spin-off. Much of this has to do with cosying up to their target market, the old and infirm. So they sponsor bowls competitions and hope to flog a few pre-imminent-need funeral plans. Or hold schmoozy sing-songs in care homes. The olden folk shed years, let themselves go, have a lovely time, led by the twinkle-eyed undertaker at the keyboard, Grim Reaper as Pied Piper. You’ve got to chuckle—death is a sovereign provoker of mirth—but you’d be wrong to be cynical. There’s no shame in doing well by doing good, none at all.

One of my local undertakers has tried out two new oblique marketing initiatives in the last year. The first is sending out silver stars to relicts, on which they are invited to write messages, send them back and have them hung on the undertakerly Christmas tree. What sort of uptake do you think that gets? Let me tell you, those stars come back in droves. Lots of people don’t actually pop in to see their star—but it clearly gives them comfort and joy to think of it in the companionship of everybody else’s.

The second new initiative was pioneered last year: a carol service. Again, there was an unexpectedly big response which, this year, tripled. There was even one woman from out of town, visiting, who heard about it and came along too. Venue? The garage, freshly painted; chairs courtesy of the sea scouts; singing turbo-boosted by the hospice choir; unsightly areas curtained off by sheets of Crem-film (customarily used to line coffins, but what the eye knows nothing of, the heart does not recoil from). It was as multi-faith as it could have been, but too big a gulf to bridge for our many Muslims. I was asked to be the MC on account of my non-aligned status. That was a mistake. I have no presence of mind in such situations, nothing of the Dermot O’Leary (memo to self: you can’t put in what god left out). I foozled and hashed it, frankly. But the evening was a huge success in spite of me. Our C of E clergy were as inclusive as only the C of E can be, lovely people and incredibly hardworking. One of them declaimed “Do not stand at my grave and weep” as if it were a call to arms. I had no clue what he was really thinking.

I don’t know that I could have predicted that this tentative PR initiative would establish itself as an important annual event. That it has done so is certainly testimony to the quality of an undertaker whose premises do not carry associations of surreality and utter dejection.

But it also meets an important need. Forms and observances. Rituals. Coming together and fellowship. Active commemoration. Vital.

This is a guest post from Jonathan Taylor, an independent funeral celebrant in Totnes and occasional funeral arranger and conductor for green fuse. He is a regular commenter on this blog.

I don’t know if you saw this picture/read this story. It’s certainly an affecting picture (click on it to make it bigger).

I’m not an expert in grief therapy—or therapy of any kind. I was sent to boarding school when I was six. Sounds privileged, I know, but think upmarket orphanage. Boarding schools pride themselves on teaching children to be independent. Don’t children become independent anyway? Whatever, a good British boarding school teaches you the art and craft of emotional self-defence—and not necessarily in a good way. You can become emotionally fortressed, profoundly private, a no-entry zone. You learn to protect your privacy by playing parts. Okay, so everyone learns to do that a bit. But British boarding schools bred some of the most brilliant and deadly people ever to spy for Russia. I’ve been trying to unpick the habits I learned ever since. I undoubtely need therapy.

Back to grief therapy. There’s a school of thought, isn’t there, that the goal of it is a wound closed over, a working through, a putting behind, the shutting of a door and a moving on? Something like that? Call it the Let My People Go school of grief therapy.

And then there’s probably a Stayin’ Alive school of therapy. If so, that’s the school for me. I talk to my Mum all the time, and she’s still a strong influence on my opinions and behaviour. Her absence is not negative space, it’s a species of presence. No closure for me, thanks.

Back in June Norm (I love Norm) posted a blog which moved me. It’s a letter. In his own words, “I wrote this letter for my grief support group several years ago trying to help them realize the one who is gone is their greatest cheerleader. That person still loves them deeply and wants them to succeed in their grief journey. As Jack Lemon said, ‘A person died, not a relationship.’”

Here it is:

Sweetheart,

It’s wonderful to be able to write you and let you know how I feel. To begin with, I’m fine. The pain is gone, the suffering is over and so many things that seemed important are no longer so.

I must tell you immediately, once again, how much I love you. That was true then, now and forever.

It’s good to see you making steps toward discovering who you are and how you feel about the life you now have. You always had inside you what you are discovering now. How happy I am that you are seeing the “you” that I have known for a long time. You are also finding many strengths I did not see in you, but were there nonetheless.

I know things changed dramatically when I died. But you have been remarkable in making progress in your grief. I am so proud of you. No one could be prouder or love you more.

I’ll never forget our lives together, just as you won’t. Know that I am pulling for you and loving you all the more from this side. I love you.

Your Love, forever

In the Guardian last Saturday there was this letter from a daughter to her dead mother:

It has been a long time since I wrote that first letter to you the summer after you died. I wrote several letters, and of course you never replied, so I carried on writing to myself, for myself. Without you there to guide me, I studied every memory of you and analysed every facet of my own grief. I’ve dissected my own character, identifying which components were you, which were Dad, and which combinations were the best way to decipher the puzzle of grieving. I’ve read my notes all over again, to try to unravel the mystery of you not being here any more.

I keep your spirit alive: retelling your stories, proudly wearing your jewellery and perfume. I have your sense of humour, your style and your creative flair and I sprinkle them around so that everyone I know will unwittingly know you too. And much as I cannot replace the wholeness of you, I have found “other mothers” of all ages who have bolstered me, soared with me and stood beside me at various points in my life, each having some quality I missed in you.

Always, I wish for you to be here. The success and happiness I have achieved in life are for ever tinged with sadness, because I want so desperately for you to share it. The good times we have are shadowed by your absence, because you would have been here, the first to take to the dance floor, cajoling all my friends, twirling in a red dress.

As I grow closer to you in age, and even surpass some of your experiences, I feel closer to you than I have done in years. It seems crazy, but our relationship is full of an energy that I haven’t felt since you were alive. And although it is a bittersweet realisation, I’m sure that somewhere beneath the ether you are smiling too that I have finally come back to you.

But now I must explain the reason for my writing to you. Often I have wished to have one more day with you: one golden day to ask the questions, hear your stories, hold your hand. Last night a question entered my head like a bubble bursting. We were watching a beautiful film, having spent a wonderful night together. I started to cry and I said to him: “I never thought I could be as happy as this.” Instantly, the bargain entered my head: “Would you swap this for a day with your mum?” I knew the answer at once, and it sunk to my stomach like a lead weight, because without hesitation I chose my future over my past. I’m sorry, Mum. I haven’t deserted you, but I have found a love, an affection that is real and palpable. And in spirit, I have found you again, so this is as perfect as it can ever mortally be.

All your love, for ever in my heart, your daughter, Anna xxx

How To Watch Your Brother Die

For Carl Morse

When the call comes, be calm.

Say to your wife, “My brother is dying. I have to fly

to California.”

try not to be shocked that he already looks like

a cadaver.

Say to the young man sitting by your brother’s side,

“I’m his brother.”

Try not to be shocked when the young man says,

“I’m his lover. Thanks for coming.”

Listen to the doctor with a steel face on.

Sign the necessary forms.

Tell the doctor you will take care of everything.

Wonder why doctors are so remote.

Watch the lover’s eyes as they stare into

your brother’s eyes as they stare into

space.

Wonder what they see there.

Remember the time he was jealous and

opened your eyebrow with a sharp stick.

Forgive him out loud

even if he can’t

understand you.

Realize the scar will be

all that’s left of him.

Over coffee in the hospital cafeteria

say to the lover, “You’re an extremely good-looking

young man.”

Hear him say,

“I never thought I was good enough looking to

deserve your brother.”

Watch the tears well up in his eyes. Say,

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what it means to be

the lover of another man.”

Hear him say,

“Its just like a wife, only the commitment is

deeper because the odds against you are so much

greater.”

Say nothing, but

take his hand like a brother’s.

Drive to Mexico for unproven drugs that might

help him live longer.

Explain what they are to the border guard.

Fill with rage when he informs you,

“You can’t bring those across.”

Begin to grow loud.

Feel the lover’s hand on your arm

restraining you. See in the guard’s eye

how much a man can hate another man.

Say to the lover, “How can you stand it?”

Hear him say, “You get used to it.”

Think of one of your children getting used to

another man’s hatred.

Call your wife on the telephone. Tell her,

“He hasn’t much time.

I’ll be home soon.” Before you hang up say,

“How could anyone’s commitment be deeper than

a husband and a wife?” Hear her say,

“Please. I don’t want to know all the details.”

When he slips into an irrevocable coma,

hold his lover in your arms while he sobs,

no longer strong. Wonder how much longer

you will be able to be strong.

Feel how it feels to hold a man in your arms

whose arms are used to holding men.

Offer God anything to bring your brother back.

Know you have nothing God could possibly want.

Curse God, but do not

abandon Him.

Stare at the face of the funeral director

when he tells you he will not

embalm the body for fear of

contamination. Let him see in your eyes

how much a man can hate another man.

Stand beside a casket covered in flowers,

white flowers. Say,

“thank you for coming,” to each of seven hundred men

who file past in tears, some of them

holding hands. Know that your brother’s life

was not what you imagined. Overhear two

mourners say, “I wonder who’ll be next?” and

“I don’t care anymore,

as long as it isn’t you.”

Arrange to take an early flight home.

His lover will drive you to the airport.

When your flight is announced say,

awkwardly, “If I can do anything, please

let me know.” Do not flinch when he says,

“Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him

after he told you. He did.”

Stop and let it soak in. Say,

“He forgave me, or he knew himself?”

“Both,” the lover will say, not knowing what else

to do. Hold him like a brother while he

kisses you on the cheek. Think that

you haven’t been kissed by a man since

your father died. Think,

“This is no moment to be strong.”

Fly first class and drink Scotch. Stroke

your split eyebrow with a finger and

think of your brother alive. Smile

at the memory and think

how your children will feel in your arms

warm and friendly and without challenge.

By Michael Lassell

To whom does grief belong? For whom should we grieve? How should we behave when we grieve and what should grief be allowed to spill over into?

When motorists cut up a cortege, sound their horns and curse it for getting in the way we observe the collapse of community values and understand that death has become a private misfortune—a social faux pas, almost. We curse Thatcher and recall the days when folk would stop, stand, and, in their way, salute – doff their hats, bow. In those days the grief of one was the grief of all. What was private was also public. People felt as John Donne did: Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.

Once in a while the public mood alters. It fixes on the death of someone unknown to them. People become involved and engulfed in grief. In the case of some people this is explicable—up to a point. Diana is a case in point. But what about Baby P? Why him and not any of the other children beaten to death by their parents every week? As for Jade, we don’t yet know how her end will be greeted. Will she be the new Queen of Hearts? Or will she have already become yesterday’s news? It could go either way. Grief for strangers can be as fickle as love.

Out of the blue comes the death of Ivan Cameron on a day like any other: some children died, as usual; some people died too young, some too suddenly; some, very old, were borne away gently, serenely, happy to be done with it.

You know how you feel about the death of Ivan Cameron and you may have thought about why you feel as you do. He has triggered the pent feelings we all have for the way things are in a world where people go too soon, we can see that, but how do we account for the tsunami of grief? How should people express their grief and how should they manage it?

My anxiety is that grief unmanaged can express itself in ways which may, yes, discredit it. The way, for example, it focuses on one and not another. And, yesterday, the way grief for Ivan interrupted the government of the nation. I think I am with Simon Carr in today’s Independent:

The deeper we look into each other the fewer differences we find. Politics divides us a lot, our daily lives less so, death least of all. There’s an equality there, of a sort, in the end. As General de Gaulle said to his wife at the graveside of their disabled daughter: “Come: Now she is like the others.”

…

As a matter of fact, Ivan really was a beautiful boy. I ran into the family having a Saturday lunch in a pub on the Windrush river some months ago. We chatted.

Ivan was lying on his back in his specialist carrying apparatus, in the middle of his easy family with a brother under the table and a Mrs Darling mother beside him. He had beautiful eyes and skin, chubby cheeks. And he looked wonderfully cared for; cherished; a beautiful boy.

Having said that, they really shouldn’t have suspended Parliament for him. “As a mark of respect to Ivan,” the Speaker said. They must have let the idea run away with them. The deputies could have managed a muted PMQs, surely. And for all the private pain, there is the life of the nation going on day by day.

A suspension has happened once before in a similar circumstance. But that was for John Smith, one of the parliamentary figures of the time. He was of the place. He was a public part of the place. This confusion or conflation of private life with the Government’s, it’s just not right.

Read the entire piece here.