September 2011 – Page 2 – The Good Funeral Guide

Keep calm and carry on

23 September 2011

Charles

1 Comment

Categories: Attitudes to death, bereavement, bureaucracy

Posted by Charles

There is a tendency among some visitors to this blog vastly to overrate the significance of death. How salutary it is, therefore, to remind ourselves that our legislators keep mortality both in perspective and in its place.

Maternity leave

As an employee you have the right to 26 weeks of Ordinary Maternity Leave and 26 weeks of Additional Maternity Leave making one year in total. The combined 52 weeks is known as Statutory Maternity Leave.

Paternity leave

As long as you meet certain conditions you can take either one or two weeks’ Ordinary Paternity Leave. You can’t take odd days off and if you take two weeks they must be taken together.

Compassionate leave

If you are an ’employee’, you have the right to unpaid time off work to deal with emergencies involving a ‘dependant’ – this could be your husband, wife, partner, child, parent, or anyone living in your household as a member of the family.

When a dependant dies, you can take time off to make funeral arrangements, as well as to attend a funeral.

If you need time off to cope with a situation that doesn’t fall under the ‘time off for dependants’ right, you may have a right to time off under your contract of employment. Many employers will have a scheme for compassionate leave and details should be included in your contract or company handbook. If the situation is not covered by any scheme then you can still ask your employer for the time off, although they do not have to agree to your request.

Source: directgov.co.uk

The bitter spice that sweetens the dish

23 September 2011

Charles

4 Comments

Categories: Attitudes to death, bereavement, celebrants, ceremony

Posted by Jonathan

A celebrant said today:

“Even when funerals are designed to be a celebration of life, I nearly always begin by acknowledging people’s grief and sadness.”

Jose (see his thought provoking blog post of 19^th September), ever enquiring and studiously leaving no stone unturned, wants to know about incorporating grieving and celebration of life in the same goodbye ceremony. His tenaciousness is stimulating for us celebrants, who must every day question our way forward.

His query: “Which are the elements that you use afterwards to move the mourners and their emotions to a more positive feeling?” is not an easy one to answer. I never thought of it in terms of involving ‘elements’, and I never thought of grief as being any less positive than celebration of life.

Grief has to do with sadness, not unhappiness. There’s a big difference between the two. Unhappiness is isolating and unattractive and faces towards depression. We’ve all been there. It’s not grieving, it’s self pity. Sadness, particularly about death, is beautiful even when it’s unbearable. It’s feeling sorry not for yourself but for your loss – loss is not separate from you, but it is not you; it encompasses you, and it’s helpful to share it with others. We’ve all been there, too. It is a noble feeling, and one I certainly wouldn’t want to be deprived of after even a tragic loss.

Following the last funeral I conducted, when I was trying to ‘let it go’, I found I couldn’t do so until I’d understood what it had taught me. I was feeling uncharacteristically sad that it had ended, but I didn’t want to stop feeling sad because I knew if I did I’d miss something very important. So I sat at the pavement table outside a café, watched the human beings go by with all their inner concerns showing or not showing, had a fag and a double espresso, and I thought deeply and wrote down what these last ten days of ‘funereality’ had given me. Why was I reluctant to release it, this recent experience that my sadness was holding so close to me?

It was only then, after I’d understood just what I was losing, that I was prepared to say goodbye to it and feel glad I’d had it while I did. That’s what a good funeral does, too. You could say it bequeaths you with a greater energy, a wisdom, as this did for me. It crystallized into a poem, which I kept to remind me why I do this (and incidentally why, unlike some bereavement workers tell me they feel, I actually find myself energized rather than burnt near the furnace of recent death). It also approaches the matter of our relationship with, and our role in, others’ grief, so I can happily share it with you here:

‘The funeral nourishes me
by embrace in the humanity of strangers.

I relieve them of their bewilderment
and reveal them to themselves in the majesty of their pain,
with words, with voice, with actions.

I touch their hurting hearts
to know they are not in isolation;
that their own grief is universal;
that healing lets love in and does not banish it;
that anguish is their invited guest;
that tomorrow will still come.

And then I leave.’

OK, I was only losing an experience, not a real live person, but the principle is the same; you have to be aware of what and whom you have lost, and the desirable pain to which love commits you, to move you on from just the raw feeling of pure loss before you can celebrate what you did have and what you still will have. The pain of loss doesn’t go away with celebration of life. It just becomes less overwhelming and more manageable when you’ve identified your loss, and understood that you still have something real and priceless, yours to keep. And it brings to your attention that we are all human, and that this is the deal.

If a bad funeral damages you by making you unhappy, that detracts nothing from the healing value of a good one, even a good sad one. And I think there’s something to do with loyalty where grief is concerned. We can’t in good conscience abandon our dead by just getting intoxicated at a hooray party, any more than we could by indulging in the misery of a self pitying orgy, or going through the motions of an irrelevant tradition.

Our dead leave us through no fault of their own. We have to include their absence in our funeral for them, painful as it is, and I believe we owe them our mourning as much as our appreciation.

A good funeral: part 1

22 September 2011

Charles

8 Comments

Categories: Attitudes to death, bereavement, burial, ceremony, death and funerals, DIY funeral, funeral

Posted by Sweetpea

In the light of our recent discussions about the merits of secular, civil and religious funerals, one interesting thread started to appear. Namely, what should a funeral not fail to include? Can a funeral ever really be meaningful to anyone? Does any funeral do the things that people need it to do? Well, for the sake of clarity, I’d like to leave the actual ritual contents of a civil or secular funeral for another day. For the moment, I think we should go one step further back, to examine how the foundations of a good funeral rite are laid. Cutting through all the arguments about the contents of a funeral, be it of whatever shade, I think the key to the success of a funeral rite (and I have no doubt that a successful funeral is possible) is one overarching thing: Relevance.

And the mechanism for allowing the door to open to Relevance? Well, that begins with well informed people who instinctively know what will be right for them, and just as importantly know where to find it. Failing that, a knowledgeable and empathetic funeral director who can guide those people towards what is the best path for them. And failing that, an experienced and skilful celebrant/member of the clergy/friend to offer advice and support to bring them to where they need to be.

The notion of Relevance should permeate the entire proceedings from beginning to end – from funeral preparations to the enactment of the rite itself. It doesn’t happen by accident, and needs empathetic, practical and experienced people working together to make it happen. As has been so wonderfully written elsewhere by Jonathan: ‘if you just listen to a family it brings it all down out of the whirlwind in the sky and settles it more easily on the ground. Stop. Do nothing. Tell me how he died; how do you feel about his death; where does that leave you now; let’s look after him gently while we all decide what to do and, far more importantly, why we’re doing it and what we hope it will achieve. Does that involve some choices? Okay, let’s deal with them in our own good time, it’s not the choices that matter anyway.’

This simple, intuitive and effective process leads eventually to arrangements which, as Tom Lynch states ‘get the dead where they need to go and the living where they need to be’. This might be a whole day spent on a hillside, with a grave dug and filled by friends on their own land, singing around a campfire until the early hours, it might be a requiem mass, it might be a twenty minute ceremony at a crematorium, followed by a celebratory knees-up at a favourite pub, it might be a C of E service followed by ham salad and scones in the village hall. If it’s relevant to these people, then that’s the nearest we are going to get to achieving those aims.

But let’s be under no illusions. Real emotional pain and damage is caused to grievers when a rite has no relevance to them – it’s traumatic and stays with them until their own dying day. We are perhaps more familiar with stories of religious rites leaving people disorientated and even more bereft because of a mis-matching of their needs and its expression. But this can be just as true for civil or secular funerals, something which I have observed when, say, a religiously inclined adult child has been painfully overruled or excluded from religious or spiritual expression by a surviving parent. Which leads us to part 2 – what should or shouldn’t be included in a successful funeral rite?

Words, words, words

21 September 2011

Charles

19 Comments

Categories: celebrants, ceremony, funeral customs

First posted by Charles on 9 Feb 2010

I’m putting this back up as a contribution to recent debates started by Jose and Richard.

Following my post about the ineptitude and ineffectiveness of words, I stumbled on this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald. It’s actually about citizenship ceremonies, but you’d never guess it from the way I’ve plucked the extracts:

Traditionally, ritual, including rites of passage, is embedded in our religious culture. And it is true that religion seems to have a competitive advantage when it comes to this stuff. Religions have been practising their liturgy for a long time. The godly are very good at all of the non-verbal aspects of ritual from bells and smells to crazy cozies to speaking in tongues. Great ceremony is about an absence of speeches and many faiths get this.

Moreover, the godly have the advantage that they feel that they are consecrating their rites in the presence of their transcendent God. That ineluctably gives an ineffable power to the ceremony. The godless will obviously struggle to match that attribute of faith. And we need to get better at the non-verbal stuff. We atheists can talk the leg off a chair but we can’t sing or chant or dance the leg off an amputee.

Now a real rite of passage doesn’t just rejoice in change. It is the change. A ceremony which merely celebrates but doesn’t cause the change is not strictly a rite of passage. Graduation ceremonies from university are rites of passage because you don’t get the damned piece of paper without enduring the ceremony. On this definition, school graduations strictly aren’t rites of passage because the exam marks after the ceremony are the life-changing event, not the school graduation or valedictory service. So funerals aren’t strictly rites of passage because unless you’re a time traveller, your funeral won’t end your life, just celebrate it.

We, of the secular world, often fail to employ those non-verbal rituals that make a ceremony. You can easily cock up even the most moving event by speeches. During my days of municipal service, these ceremonies meandered between inspirational and pedestrian. The pedestrian bits were inevitably the speeches. The best bits were non-verbal – the Mayoral handshake, the familial hugging, the singing of the national anthem, the presentation of the symbolic wattle and the giving of certificate. All of these had no words merely music or actions.

Religions don’t have a monopoly on rites of passage but they do them better than us. The secular world needs to learn more about celebrating without speeches. We need to have rituals we perform together and not passively watch. I think we are still a century or so away from really learning these skills.

At the heart of great ceremony is performance that is not normal. Normal is pedestrian. Words are dull. We need transforming ceremony and that requires anything but speeches.

Read the whole article here.

Euphemisms 1: Officials and officiousness

21 September 2011

Charles

1 Comment

Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death

Posted by Vale

Euphemisms are all about not facing up to reality. We like to think we use them for good reasons, but they have a darker side too. This poem, written by Harold Pinter in 1997, uses one of the words we often shy from, yet it too is a euphemism. It was written in the year that his own father died and I think that, writing about death in this way, he was describing something of his own experience of the way that deaths are managed and, in the midst of the form filling, the way that language can help us hide from what has happened and what we have both done and not done.

Because it is Pinter, of course, I think he was also making a point about the way that being ’official’, can lead to the denial of both feelings and humanity at many different levels. Of course the poem is an extreme version of unfeeling officiousness but does it remind you at all of the way that some funeral businesses handle their first contact with families?

Death (Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953)

Where was the dead body found? Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead? Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body Did you close both its eyes Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body

The poem was silkscreen printed on 7 hospital bedsheets and 7 forensic dissection tables surrounded by the smell of lysol.

Bagga man

20 September 2011

Charles

6 Comments

Categories: Uncategorised

Posted by T Roll

ok right so who are you realy mr charles cowling you claim to be some witer than wite hollier than thou consumer advocate well weres your conflic of intrest uh ill tell you and all youre readers YOU ARE A SECCRET UNDERTAKER YOU ARE A WITED SEPULHCRE YOU ARE A FRAUD!!!! considder yourselve hacked HA HA HA

Should the British mourn or celebrate their dead?

19 September 2011

Charles

31 Comments

Categories: Academia and death, Attitudes to death, ceremony, funeral customs, funeral reformers

Posted by Jose Antonio Estevez Garcia

When my best friend died at the age of 38 it was a drama – not only his unexpected loss but also his funeral which, far from helping us to face that moment, only added more pain to those grievous days.

The reason is quite simple: when Angel died his parents were in shock and the funeral was designed following what tradition dictates. This resulted in an event that betrayed his memory and created terrible memories that are difficult to forget – for example, memories of the viewing.

Viewing is a mandatory element in Spanish funerals and it is aimed to allow people to “physically” farewell the one who passed away. When I was told that my friend had died I thought nothing could be so painful until I saw him in the coffin with a broken gesture in his face. Until that moment I only had memories of him smiling and sharing all the goodness he brought to my life. Seeing his dead body in a coffin only opened a new wound. Many people who attended the funeral shared a similar feeling. In my opinion, tradition should only rule our lives if it helps us in any way, otherwise it may be time for a change.

I quit my job in Spain to come to the UK to explore my most creative side, so I started a master’s called “Applied Imagination” at Saint Martins College (one of the most prestigious centers of Art and Design in the world).

Within the master I am developing a research project where I am analyzing ways in which traditional industries to evolve in response to demand for personalized innovative services by customers. To develop this idea I am researching into how creative methodologies such as “Design Thinking” and “Lateral Thinking” can challenge conservative industries with innovative business models co-created by the customers of the previously mentioned personalized services. In summary, it is a bespoke innovation driven by customer demand in traditional industries as a way to disrupt their current business model.

To develop and test my findings I have chosen the funeral industry which, because of strong tradition, is quite reluctant to change. The funeral of my beloved friend made me think that a change in this sector could help other people. The approach proposed in this application case of my project is not against tradition; but in favor of opening our minds to personalized funerals in which traditional and/or innovative elements may help relatives and friends feeling as better as possible, given the circumstances.

In my opinion, the key to reconcile opposed views about the arrangements among those who will attend a funeral is that the deceased makes a decision about it before dying. Exactly like what people do when they choose whether they prefer burial or cremation, but getting into all the other details, like in a wedding (a funeral is not less important as to not give them a thought, specially if you care about the ones who will live your farewell).

To test my proposal I have prepared the video of my funeral, whose aim is to avoid mourning my death but to celebrate my life, what I call a “happy funeral” i.e. a funeral in which all the elements are thought to avoid creating sad memories and aim to generate a positive state of mind. The video is posted above and has been watched to date by 1130 people.

In addition to the video initiative, I have can you buy cialis online interviewed different stakeholders and gatekeepers and gathered amazing experiences shared by the people who have answered the survey published with the video. I am also researching into funerals in different countries, cultures and religions, trying to determine which elements can help change the state of mind in a funeral from a sad one into a positive one as, in my understanding, this will play an essential supporting part in the required process of accepting and fighting to overcome the pain of the loss of a loved one.

I have had the chance to talk with the sister of a 26 year-old guy who died in Spain last August. It seems that, some weeks before passing away, they had occasional conversations about death where he said he wanted a party if he died.

Unfortunately this happened and his family decided to respect his last will. The death notice they published in the local newspaper was later diffused at national level because it was the first time in Spain a funeral had been announced as if it was a party. And it was a party. A special one where there were moments for tears, but also moments to sing and dance and smile, reminding everyone of the most outstanding feature of this guy: his happiness.

She explained to me that when you have to face the death of a loved one the primary feeling you have is suffering, in her words, a selfish feeling because you only care about your pain without taking care of how that pain will have a negative effect in all the others attending the funeral (aren’t tears as contagious as laughter?). Overcoming the pain and making an effort to be happy to celebrate all the love and the good moments her brother had given to them was seen by her as a generous feeling because it demonstrated care for how others would live that moment. She had lost her brother one month previously, but she talked about him and his funeral in a positive and peaceful way.

When I told her about the funeral of my best friend I realized I still struggle to overcome certain memories that seem like open wounds in my mind. In our conversation it seemed that the “happy funeral” of her brother had helped her more than the traditional one I experienced when I lost my best friend. Apparently it also helped the family and friends of this guy. Even those who had a traditional opinion about the arrangements accepted Aitor’s last will, understanding that it was faithful to his personality and thus a respectful way to honor him.

Along with my video I have published a survey, anonymously answered so far by 220 people. Between 80% and 90% of them have said they would like a happy funeral; but most of them mentioned that they had never thought of the possibility of arranging a funeral in an alternative way. It seems that when people are given options, they open their minds to personalized solutions that may take elements from tradition but which also incorporate issues related to their own life.

And here is where the industry can make a difference, since less than half of the people stated in the survey that the funerals they had been to had helped them feel better. In several cases they state the opposite.

Isn’t this a motive for the professional sector to question whether traditional funerals effectively serve a positive purpose?

We’d all be better off if we stopped believing in belief

18 September 2011

Charles

2 Comments

Categories: Atheism

Following last week’s great debate between the GFG religious correspondent, various unbelievers and a handful of don’t-knows [here] it was gripping this morning to sip tea in bed and listen to John Gray arguing that ‘we’d all be better off if we stopped believing in belief’.

The ten-minute talk can be heard once more on Listen Again. Better still for those who prefer their words served written, a public-spirited blogging ex-librarian in Michigan has transcribed it. Frank White, thank you.

Gray really is worth listening to. Gloria mundi recommends him, too. He concludes:

We’d all be better off if we stopped believing in belief. Not everyone needs a religion, but if you do you shouldn’t be bothered about finding arguments for joining or practising one. Just go into the church, synagogue, mosque or temple and take it from there. What we believe doesn’t in the end matter very much. What matters is how we live.

Now go to Frank’s website for the foregoing. Here.

Deathbed visions

18 September 2011

Charles

4 Comments

Categories: Paranormal deathbed experiences

In her latest blog post, Sue Brayne, author of the D-Word: Talking About Dying, describes a recent meeting of the Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies. Sue worked with Dr Peter Fenwick in researching into end-of-life experiences (ELEs). Here’s a taster:

Our end-of-life experience study included over 800 extraordinary accounts from relatives, nurses, doctors and carers who had witnessed the dying seeing apparitions of much-loved dead relatives or children appearing to them in the last few weeks, days, hours, sometimes minutes of life. The apparitions seemed to soothe the dying person and help them to let go. Some of the dying said they believed these apparitions had come to ‘take them away’, or to help them to ‘pass over.’

Many relatives who reported these stories felt greatly comforted in the knowledge that the dying person wasn’t alone, and they were being helped to die. This in turn, eased their grieving process.

Read Sue’s entire blog post here. Highly recommended.

Wring out your dead

16 September 2011

Charles

2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorised

Posted by Charles

Yesterday (15 September) Hilary Benn asked this question in the House:

May we have a statement on reports that the Government propose to ask bereaved relatives, including those on low incomes, for payment when they go to register the death of a loved one? The charge, estimates of which vary from £100 to £180, is apparently intended to pay for a new system to check on causes of death, but the cost, which is no longer to be hidden in funeral directors’ charges, will be collected when families turn up, often in a distressed state, at the register office, or they will be sent an invoice later. Given that the Conservative party made such a fuss at the last election about a so-called death tax, will a Minister explain at the Dispatch Box why they now plan to impose one?

Does anyone know anything about this?

Source