5 October 2011 – The Good Funeral Guide

Gail Rubin’s 30 funerals in 30 days challenge 2011

Over in the United States the indefatigable and brilliant blogger Gail Rubin has already embarked on her 30 funerals in 30 day challenge. Yes, she is going to cover one day for a month, and today is actually Day Six, so you’ve got some catching up to do. Don’t miss Day Five, when she visited a pet cemetery on, most appropriately, St Francis’ Day.

Gail attends the ordinary funerals of ordinary people, and that’s what makes this project so gripping and also, I think, important. All ordinary people are extraordinary; their funerals speak to everyone.

For us here in the UK it’s very interesting to gain this insight into the way they do things over there. Best of all, there are things we can learn.

If you missed last year’s 30 in 30 you can find it in Gail’s blog archive.

Find The Family Plot blog here.

Order a copy of Gail’s book here. It’s good.

And here is some music from Gene R Spence’s funeral (Day 5)

I am not gonna lay around and whine and mourn for somebody that done me wrong
Don’t think for a minute that I am gonna sit around and sing some old sad song
I believe it’s half full not a half empty glass
Every day I wake up knowing it could be my last

[Chorus:]
I ain’t here for a long time
I’m here for a good time
So bring on the sunshine, to hell with the red wine
Pour me some moon shine
When I’m gone put it in stone “He left nothing behind”
I ain’t here for a long time
I’m here for a good time

Folks are always dreaming about what they like to do but I like to do just what I like
I take the chance, dance the dance, it might be wrong but then again it might be right
There’s no way of knowing what tomorrow brings
Life’s too short to waste it I say bring on anything

Dying Large

Very nice piece here by Wendy Dennis in the Huffington Post.

I must have crossed some kind of age threshold, because when I go to funerals lately, I start thinking about my own. It’s not the dying part that scares me. It’s the numbers I’ll draw for the service. I’m in the sanctuary and the place is packed and some relative is at the podium going on about how wonderful the dead person was and how much they gave to the UJA, and I start taking a head count and doing the math and the minute the funeral is over, I call up my daughter and tell her that when my time comes, she has to hire extras.

She hates when I talk like that, but I don’t think you can be too careful about the optics of your own demise. For instance, if I die in a horrible accident, I want my handlers to know that they are not, under any circumstances, to let anyone mark the spot with teddy bears or carnations, tell my loved ones that I’m “in a better place”, hold a “life-affirming” remembrance for me, or deliver one of those treacly eulogies that make people wonder if they’ve walked into the wrong chapel.

There ought to be a law against delivering a crappy eulogy. I can’t tell you how many funerals I’ve sat through wishing that the Law and Order crew would burst into the sanctuary, handcuff the offenders, and read them their rights — especially the one about their right to remain silent. When someone is charged with the responsibility of delivering the last words that will ever be spoken about another human being, I think they have a moral obligation not to mention their meatball recipe.

More here. Well worth it.