The Co-operative reports 21% increase in funeral plan sales

No funeral director, however brilliant, can stimulate an appetite for their product – because we pass their way but once. But a funeral director can sign up tomorrow’s customers today by the ingenious means of selling them a pre-need funeral plan.

Pre-need plans look like a very good bet. They’re inflation-proof. And they are easy to sell. Just tweak people’s consciences by telling them that it’s a helpful and thoughtful thing to do for those who will be charged with disposing of you and you’ve got a win-win-win.

The Co-operative Group and Dignity, in particular, have done an incredibly good job of selling their pre-need plans. So much so that the independent sector is finding that tomorrow’s market increasingly belongs to these big conglomerates. As turf wars go, this one is looking very one-sided.

The more so with the Co-op’s proclamation on 5 March of a staggering 21 per cent growth in sales of pre-need plans in 2009. If I were an independent I’d be writing off my future.

Are pre-need plans the best way of paying for a funeral? I haven’t the financial literacy to work that out. I wonder if any reader of this blog has a view or, better still, an analysis.

What is certain is that consumer choice is under grave threat from funeral providers who, for the most part, cannot rival independents for personal service or value for money.

Read the incredibly depressing Co-op announcement here.

No service by request

One more go at Canada’s Times Colonist. A rich seam, this.

There are 13 obits in the paper. Of those, 3 opt for no service; 3 opt for a celebration of life (I’m not sure exactly what that is, but at least one of them’s not a funeral); 4 opt for a memorial service; and just 3 opt for a funeral (all burials by the look of them). That means 8 out of 13 of these dead people will duck out of/be spared a conventional funeral. By UK standards, unthinkable.

There seem to be three reasons for the decline of the Canadian funeral.

First, older people (okay, seniors if you insist) move to retirement places and, uprooted from the place where, all their lives, they have done what was expected of them, feel disconnected from social conventions – fancy-free and free for anything.

Second, having moved to a retirement centre, these people suppose that there’ll be no one to come to their funeral.

Third, having been to awful funerals in the past, these (liberated, it has to be said) people reckon a funeral is not for them, so they specify: no service by request.

The local funeral director, McCall’s, is clearly so concerned by this that they have put a half-hour discussion of the no-funeral option on their website in the hope that people will reconsider.

In the UK we have retirement centres and more than enough experience of bleak and meaningless funerals.

So, why is it taking us so long to catch up?

Listen to the discussion on the McCalls site here: No Service By Request

The great reveller

A Christian funeral proclaims the fierce, happy truth that ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’. As Christians see it, Sin corrupts and depraves, Death annihilates and nullifies. Both are the spawn of Satan, who is Evil, the mortal (lit) enemy of God who is Good and, the theology goes, the victor in the end. It’s pure Star Wars. Nice idea, good plot, great movie, but, for so many people, no more than that. To believe, for them, requires an impossible feat of suspended disbelief resulting in that narked, defiant expression non-believers wear at religious funerals. There’s a good example of this over at Carla’s blog, where she reflects feistily and funnily on resurrection: “my caregiver Alexa wanted to know if my new perfect body would have red hair and great tits because otherwise it would be a downgrade.”

Once you’ve established the certainty of rising in glory you can look death coolly in the eyes and see it clearly for the howling, sneering, brutal, destructive hooligan it is. If you can beat this mindless yob up, you’re obviously going to whoop a bit. Thus, St John Chrysostom:

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Saviour has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh. Isaiah foretold this when he said, “You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below.”

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Resounding stuff. Intriguing tense change. And at least Christians implicitly recognise that the death of the body is potentially catastrophic, rendering living pointless.

What, then of those who cannot assure themselves of victory despite the knockdown on the deathbed? Is death, for them, defeat? Is having your body brought to a funeral like being paraded, accompanied by your shamed family and friends, as a vanquished captive at an emperor’s triumph? Can you make of this catastrophe something at least acceptable? Can you make it all right by calling death your friend? Well, we try, don’t we, with all that stuff about circles of life and leaves falling off an oak tree and death is nothing at all and I am not there I did not die and death is only an old door set in a garden wall; on quiet hinges it gives at dusk when thrushes call? Secular celebrants have gallons of this emollient balm to slap on.

For all these brave, naff words, twenty minutes at the crem looks to an observer like sullen surrender, a huddled duty-shuffle past the Old Enemy.

You can at least deny the Old Enemy this public humiliation by not having a funeral at all. I’m surprised more people don’t.

Click the pic to make it huge.

In praise of the lapidary epitaph

lap·i·dar·yadjective: characterized by an exactitude and extreme refinement that suggests gem cutting: a lapidary style; lapidary verse. Of, pertaining to, or suggestive of inscriptions on stone monuments.

I wandered over to the Times Colonist in Canada this morning. It’s a while since I’ve been. The obituaries are some of the best. They often embody a really nicely written epitaph – a lapidary epitaph. The sort of epitaph you find in English churches before the Victorians pumped in hot air and sonority. Jane Austen’s is as fine a model as you could find:

In Memory of JANE AUSTEN, youngest daughter of the late Revd GEORGE AUSTEN, formerly Rector of Steventon in this County. She departed this Life on the 18th of July 1817, aged 41, after a long illness supported with the patience and the hopes of a Christian. The benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections. Their grief is in proportion to their affection, they know their loss to be irreparable, but in their deepest affliction they are consoled by a firm though humble hope that her charity, devotion, faith and purity have rendered her soul acceptable in the sight of her REDEEMER.

At the Times Colonist we find this in commemoration of STEPHENSON, Colin Patrick October 6, 1964 – February 21, 2010:

Living courageously, often defiantly, with HIV/AIDS for many years, Colin was a man whose imposing stature was matched by a huge heart. Known for being stubborn, opinionated, and a consummate devil’s advocate, he will be remembered most for his sense of humor, his thoughtfulness and honesty, and above all his kindness, which he shared among a diverse network of friends, family and co-workers. All who met Colin were struck by his fierce independence, passion for fairness, and constant attention to friends and family. His was a life defined by caring for others. Predeceased by his father, Richard, he is survived by his mother, Ruth, his partner, Shawn, his sister, Jennifer, brothers Greg (Paivi) and Tim (Kathy), and aunts Joan (Jim), Prue (Jack), and Ruthie.

Numerous cousins, nephews, and nieces will miss his hugs and jokes. All will miss the warmth of his twinkling eyes, infectious laugh, and soft flannel shirts.

I’ve probably chosen the best of the crop. Read the rest here.

I was struck, as I read, by how many of these obits end by announcing there will be no funeral. It set me wondering… More matter for another blog post.

Dicky tikka

THE proprietor of an Indian restaurant next-door to a proposed funeral parlour is concerned the development will turn diners off their pappadums and vindaloo.

 
We see a lot of stories like this revealing how disconnected death is from life. It’s why the bereaved feel so disconnected from the living. If there is one truly superfluous ingredient of grief it has to be social embarrassment.
 
As to the good Mr Kumar (story above), I cannot resist the observation that a connecting corridor between his restaurant and the undertaker’s might actually serve everyone’s best interests. A cheap joke, I agree with you, but none the less giggly for that.

Love Life and Death in a Day

My thanks to Andrew Plume for pointing me to this excellent documentary on Channel 4, Love, Life and Death in a Day. First broadcast in Feb ’09 it follows births, marriages and funerals in Bristol on Midsummer’s Day, and features Rachel and Liz of Bristol South Funeral Service, whom I am booked to go and see next week. It’s a lovely piece of film-making. There’s so much more to it than death. Hugely recommended. Watch it here.

Spooky

Here’s a synopsis for an upcoming movie, After.Life at imdb.com.
 

“After a horrific car accident, Anna (Christina Ricci) wakes up to find the local funeral director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) preparing her body for her funeral. Confused, terrified, and feeling still very much alive, Anna doesnt believe shes dead, despite the funeral director’s reassurances that she is merely in transition to the afterlife. Eliot convinces her he has the ability to communicate with the dead and is the only one who can help her. Trapped inside the funeral home, with nobody to turn to except Eliot, Anna is forced to face her deepest fears and accept her own death. But Anna’s grief-stricken boyfriend Paul (Justin Long) still can’t shake the nagging suspicion that Eliot isnt what he appears to be. As the funeral nears, Paul gets closer to unlocking the disturbing truth, but it could be too late; Anna may have already begun to cross over to the other side.”

 

What does grief feel like?

In 2004 the crime writer and anti-fascist journalist Stieg Larsson died of a heart attack aged 50. His lifelong partner Eva Gabrielsson has written a book about him.

“It’s about what it’s like to lose someone like that, someone you’ve loved for so long. Everyone will encounter this [the shock of losing someone] sooner or later. I want to show what a hell it is. But also I want to say: don’t be afraid. Embrace it, and you’ll get through it. You become somebody else. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you are in total distrust of the world. But this is the way it is supposed to be. There is something in our genetic code, something primitive, that takes us over because our rational self cannot deal with the reality. You’re an animal now. But the more of an animal you are, the safer you are: it protects you. It’s there to help you survive.”

 

How long did the worst of it last? “For two months I was in very bad shape. There was no time to prepare. The world changes in an instant. Swedish women are supposed to be capable. We’re not prone to ask for help. But I had to ask for help. I thought that was against my nature.” So she turned to friends? “Yes, and they turned to me, that very same day. They just came. They left work early, and they came to our home. Have you eaten? they said. I don’t know, I said. They brought wine, and cookies. The kitchen table was rather full. Everyone was just there, putting food on my plate, filling up my glass. This went on until 3am. Look. If you don’t know what to say, that’s OK. Just be there. A bereaved person needs to see other animals when they’re in this state. You think: if they exist, maybe I exist, too.”

Read the whole piece in the Observer here.

The Good Funeral Guide
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