The Good Funeral Guide

Photo by Nicobobinus

Posted by Cadaverous

This week, like much of the country, I have been watching the riots that ripped apart our communities. I don’t only mean watching the incessant news updates and reading the reams of angry and insightful comment. I was immersed in events themselves with riot police at both ends of my street, and local youths bombarding police with bricks. On Wednesday night you would have founds me bolting my windows tight and worrying about the safety of my children. 

The local area was taken to pieces. Cars and shops were set on fire and passersby and the emergency services attacked. Surprisingly, the rioters even took exception to Hackney’s branch of Co-operative Funeralcare whilst other surrounding shops survived unscathed.

With the freedom of the city the rioters didn’t march on parliament demanding equality and justice. No, they went shopping. When there weren’t designer goods to be had, anything seemed to do with even pound shops being looted. Rioters were hitting the streets with a brick in one hand and a clutch of empty bags in the other. 

In some way this riot shopping is not surprising. The quest to consume has become a dominant soundtrack to our lives. But it’s not only the rioters who go to rotten extremes to get what they want, as the grotty behaviour exposed in the NOTW phone hacking scandal shows. The world often looks so damn unfair. Blowing up the financial system seems to win you a state subsidised bonus and many of our MPs have been caught quietly swindling the taxpayer.

An insightful friend recently said that ‘consumer capitalism is driven by death energy.’ I think he means that we’re not very sorted about death and dying, and this manifests in our prevalent value system. We’re looking for value without context and our fears work to shift a lot of product. 

This makes sense if our awareness of mortality is linked to how well we live our lives. That this is part of the human condition is the subject of a “venerable line stretching back to the beginning of written thought.” (Yalom). The Stoic philosopher Seneca said “No man enjoys the true taste of life but he who is willing and ready to quit it.” For us, blanking out death means we get overly attracted to gaudy baubles such as glamour, riches, fame, power and luxury. 

The riots have resurrected talk of ‘Broken Britain’. Britain, and indeed much of the world, certainly looks pretty shaky if not broken, but there seems to be a distinct lack of alternatives about what we need to do. Cracking down on rioters might stop the riots happening again, but will it really address what ails us? It often seems that there’s nothing with integrity left. 

My suggestion for our response to this situation is a bit different. I think we should step up our work to get people to engage with death. 

Maybe this might result in more people doing what’s really important for them right now. Maybe we’d be less attracted to stale models of what a good life looks like. Maybe we’d decide we need less stuff instead of more. 

Just maybe.

Cadaverous hangs out at Death Cafe. 

Posted by Sweetpea

On holiday, I bought myself a new book of poetry by one of my favourite poets, Billy Collins, published by Picador Poetry.  What a treat:

Every morning since you disappeared for good,

 I read about you in the daily paper

 along with the box scores, the weather, and all the bad news.

Some days I am reminded that today

will not be a wildly romantic time for you,

nor will you be challenged by educational goals,

nor will you need to be circumspect at the workplace.

Another day, I learn that you should not miss

an opportunity to travel and make new friends

though you never cared much about either.

I can’t imagine you ever facing a new problem

with a positive attitude, but you will definitely not

be doing that, or anything like that, on this weekday in March.

And the same goes for the fun

you might have gotten from group activities,

a likelihood attributed to everyone under your sign.

A dramatic rise in income may be a reason

to treat yourself, but that would apply

more to all the Pisces who are still alive,

still swimming up and down the stream of life

or suspended in a pool in the shade of an overhanging tree.

But you will be relieved to learn

that you no longer need to reflect carefully before acting,

nor do you have to think more of others,

and never again will creative work take a back seat

to the business responsibilities that you never really had.

And don’t worry today or any day

about problems caused by your unwillingness

to interact rationally with your many associates.

No more goals for you, no more romance,

no more money or children, jobs or important tasks,

but then again, you were never thus encumbered.

So leave it up to me now

to plan carefully for success and the wealth it may bring,

to value the dear ones close to my heart,

and to welcome any intellectual stimulation that comes my way

though that sounds like a lot to get done on a Tuesday.

I am better off closing the newspaper,

putting on the clothes I wore yesterday

(when I read that your financial prospects were looking up)

then pushing off on my copper-coloured bicycle

and pedaling along the shore road by the bay.

And you stay just as you are,

lying there in your beautiful blue suit,

your hands crossed on your chest

like the wings of a bird who has flown

in its strange migration not north or south

but straight up from earth

and pierced the enormous circle of the zodiac.

Posted By Charles

The Good Funeral Guide Blog is off on its travels again and, although I can now connect to the Internet while I journey, expect only  intermittent and – even by this blog ‘s standards – erratic postings.

But you are all on holiday too! In fact there are, apparently, 14 million of us on the roads today. Let’s hope the sun shines on us all.

Back in August – see you then!

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.

Source: Postsecret

Going Nowhere

Long way back home

Posted by Charles Cowling

Coming soon, A Giving Tribute — ‘the caring alternative to funeral flowers’ — a project I wholeheartedly endorse. 

Over in Canada, “Cartoonist Adrian Raeside once placed an obituary in the Times Colonist in which he asked mourners to send singlemalt scotch and Cuban cigars in lieu of flowers.” [Source] 

What’s your alternative to funeral flowers? 

Family and friends carry the coffin of Rex ‘The Moose’ Mossop, rugby league legend, at his funeral. In his eulogy, his son said this of him: “He was an insufferable pain in the arse sometimes but I loved him to death.”

Respected voices don’t much like this arm’s length carrying, but I do. We don’t disagree, we just think differently. You can do that in Funeralworld.

Story here.

Briefly, homeless man Kevin McClain falls ill with lung cancer and is taken to hospital, thence to a hospice. His dog, Yurt, is taken to a shelter and rehomed. Close to death, Mr McClain asks to see his dog one last time. Yurt is brought to him, as you can see in the photo. Two days later Mr McClain died.

There’s a damp-eyed start to the week for you.

Hat-tip to the splendid Funeral Consumers Alliance for this.

Napoleon’s tomb

Thomas Friese, an old friend of this blog who has often made us sit up and think hard about memorialisation (commemoration if your prefer the perfectly good old school word) breezed into my inbox yesterday and again today with some characteristically thought provoking ideas.

His ideas derived from a tomb in Mount Olivet, Nashville and an accompanying post from a member of the Facebook Taphophiles group. Taphophiles are people who love burial grounds; you could describe them as niche social historians. You have to apply to join the Facebook group but the bar’s not high; they let me in.

The tomb in question is that of railroad baron Vernon King Stevenson, and you can judge the size of Mr Stevenson’s self-importance when you discover that his tomb is a replica of Napoleon’s. Stevenson did well materially, but he did not do good. In the Civil War, charged with evacuating Confederate supplies from Fort Donelson, he deserted his post and fled, leaving the spoils to the advancing Federal army. Years later he was involved in some dodgy share dealing. The upshot is that, while Confederate graves at Mount Olivet are tended to this day and decorated with Confederate flags, Stevenson’s conspicuously isn’t. So you could describe his tomb as ignominy on a grand scale, a huge monument to a less than little man.

Thomas makes the point that ‘this image and related story are a good example, albeit on a bit of a pompous scale, of why lasting tombstones are reference points, indeed building stones, of history and culture.’ He goes on to say, ‘While this aesthetic may no longer appeal to us, in its time it probably had more meaning and certainly more art in it than most of the pap offered today. Life moves on and new forms have to be discovered. But let’s stay objective and only approve of things when they have reached a level worthy of approval!’

According to Thomas’s analysis we are in a state of transition, fumbling our way towards ways of commemorating our dead which are meaningful to us now and which, we hope, will be meaningful to people in the future. Where we are now isn’t it. Certainly the aesthetic of any contemporary local authority cemetery will be unlikely, come tumbledown, to excite the efforts of conservers.

I think he’s got a point. Not, though, that we’re likely to arrive at a single convention. There’s plenty of debate about how to mark a life (and what to do with the ashes) in a society which cremates 75 per cent of its dead and I guess it is going to lead to all kinds of diversity, much of which will not endure.  I’m beginning to think that online memorial sites are now beginning to look like a fad, just as Facebook is weathering sudden, unexpected indifference from its once feverish users. I’ve collected at least 25 virtual memorial sites; I wonder how they’re doing. The stampede there has certainly abated.

Yes, I wonder where we’re going…   You probably know.