Thoughts of a funeral-goer

Posted by Lyra Mollington

Our neighbour Keith had no idea that the woman who visited him every day in the care home was his wife of 57 years.  Their children and grandchildren were also strangers to him.  After he died, Doreen felt guilty that she wasn’t as grief stricken as she thought she should have been.  She was also worrying about how Keith was coping in heaven.  When the children told her they were going to help her to plan the send-off their dad deserved, she felt a glimmer of hope returning.

The sun was shining on the day of Keith’s funeral.  His widow was wearing a cream dress with a pale pink jacket.  There was no floral arrangement – instead Doreen, her children and her grandchildren each placed a rose on the coffin before they sat down.  Everyone had chosen their favourite colour.  The roses clashed beautifully.  Jim Reeves was singing, ‘Welcome To My World’.

After some words from the celebrant (a homely looking woman with a warm smile) Keith’s daughter and son held hands and came up to the front to read the poem ‘One At Rest’.  The celebrant then told us how Doreen and the family had spent the weekend reminiscing, talking to friends old and new, and looking at photographs going back to 1933, the year Keith was born. 

They had decided not to have a eulogy.  Instead, there was going to be a slideshow set to Rodrigo’s ‘Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre’. 

As soon as I saw the first black and white photograph of a little boy sitting on his father’s shoulders, I was captivated.  We all were.  We smiled, laughed and shed a tear as photographs from each decade of Keith’s life appeared: the school boy with a crooked tie; the soldier standing to attention; the beaming bridegroom; the Chelsea supporter with his blue and white scarf; the proud father and grandfather; and the fisherman with his arms outstretched describing the one that got away.  We even saw Keith dressed as a pirate.  By the time the final photograph of an old man cradling his great grandson came into focus, I was desperately hoping for more. 

The music ended.  But then there was a short piece of camcorder footage.  Keith and Doreen were on the dance floor at their granddaughter’s wedding reception.  This was just a few months before the Alzheimer’s diagnosis.  Doreen was wearing a cream dress and a pale pink jacket.  Keith spotted the camera, smiled and waved.

Later, Doreen told us that this was the man she wanted us all to remember.  More importantly, this was the Keith she wanted to say goodbye to.

Panning for gold

We have a list of good funeral directors on the GFG website. It’s got stagnant. We’ve not added to it for a while, nor have we maintained a relationship with some of the funeral directors we recommend. Most of our recommended funeral directors are as good as it gets; some need to be weeded out. The upshot, though, is that, for want of vitality, the listing has begun to lose credibility. We’ve spent too much time on the blog, simple as that. 

We were scratching our heads here, trying to work out how best to revive our list and make it sustainable when one of our recommended funeral directors emailed this enquiry: 

What weight does your recommendation / listing carry? Would premises / facilities be inspected?  Is there a code of practice, or a means to deal with any FD that does not meet expectations?  

All good questions. 

To begin at the beginning. The rationale behind the project is easy to define. Because there is all the difference in the world – for some bereaved people it can be a life-changing difference – between a brilliant funeral director and a merely ordinary one, not to mention a bad one, it is a service to the bereaved to list those who will look after them best. Do that effectively, accentuating the positive, and you can stimulate market forces to eliminate the negative. Far more useful to build a bypass to the Co-op and Dignity than spend energy destroying them. It’s also a lot more fun. To sing the praises of unsung heroes makes the world a more beautiful place. 

A listing of this sort is a service to listed funeral directors, too, of potentially significant commercial value. Third-party endorsement by an org which has no business connections with the funeral industry, and is therefore wholly independent, really is worth something in a market where most people can’t tell the difference between one funeral director and another. 

The idea was that the listing would be of most value if it was based on subjective criteria consistent with the personality of the website so that people would be able judge its value according to their own values.  By and large we don’t do bland, we do like Marmite and we don’t try to be all things to all people. We reckon that the distinguishing characteristic of a good funeral director is that he or she is an outstanding human being, simple as that. We only want to list outstanding funeral directors. 

Funeralworld is another country: they do things differently there. For this reason, consumer advocates have to do things differently, too. It’s all very straightforward for the Good Food Guide, which can depend for recommendations and reviews on expert consumers. We found that out to our cost. We sought to establish a nationwide network of funeral consumer champions who would identify, review and re-inspect funeral directors in their area. We advertised and got lots of eager volunteers. But they simply didn’t measure up. They couldn’t differentiate between the best, the good ordinary and sometimes the markedly indifferent. They didn’t know enough. 

The same is continually true of a lot of consumer responses that come directly to us, though from time to time somebody does email in with a recommendation of outstanding value. In the same way, a lot of funeral directors who self-refer turn out to be excellent. Easily the best source of referrals is celebrants, but here we have to be careful to establish that their endorsement is not just an ingratiation exercise. Where we do get a good lead from a celebrant we have to be careful to protect their confidentiality. 

The alternative to applying subjective criteria is to apply objective criteria. We could develop an accreditation scheme on the lines of Charter Mark, now called the Customer Service Excellence standard, together with an inspection regime — a sort of Ofdeath. But it would cost a lot to administer, which would make it impossible for new businesses to afford. It would also mean accrediting blameless but dull funeral directors. As I say, we’re only interested in outstanding, and we very much like being able to get behind a really good funeral director who’s just starting out. We want to enjoy the freedom to recommend whoever we like, including funeral directors who don’t want to be recommended. And we want to enjoy the freedom to de-list anyone at the click of a mouse. Our recommendation is for one year at a time. 

That’s not to say that formal accreditation by an independent organisation is not a good and desirable thing. It is. But that’s for someone else to do. We seek no monopoly. 

We’re not interested in making money from the listing. Our credibility resides in our poverty.  But we do need to make our listing sustainable. We do need to re-inspect funeral directors. We do want to feature good long reviews and we need to pay for them to be written. We could paywall our listing, but we don’t want to. We could solicit donations from funeral directors, and we’ve tried that with conspicuous unsuccess, probably due to our inability to prove its value to them. We could probably do something about that. 

So, where do we go from here? We probably need to develop a GFG Secret Service of trusted agents operating under a cloak of secrecy. Call it benevolent deceit, if you like. Actually, it’s already begun working encouragingly well. 

We’re determined to make our listing work because the cause is a good one. 

We’re very open-source, here. Do tell us what you think. 

Down to Earth wants volunteers

Down to Earth Mentoring Programme  
Down to Earth is now recruiting volunteer mentors to support people on a low income as they deal with the funeral planning process.

What will mentoring for Down to Earth be like?

Challenging but rewarding! You will work closely with individuals and families on low incomes who are organising a funeral—sometimes their own. You will be providing them with the information and support they need to make the best possible decisions at this difficult time. This may involve working from our base in Bethnal Green, a community venue or a person’s home. Types of support may include:
• Telephone signposting to appropriate services
• 1:1 planning sessions with our funeral planning pack
• Support in filling out Social Fund claim forms or making loan applications
• Support in meeting funeral directors and other official appointments
• Providing a neutral viewpoint and unbiased feedback on decisions
• Gently guiding someone through the whole funeral process

What skills and qualities are we looking for?

We need people with empathy, patience and good communication skills. You will be a good organiser, confident in problem solving and happy working with challenging and delicate situations. Some experience of death and funerals is ideal, but not essential. Above all, we are looking for people with the desire, time, skills and compassion to commit to working with people who are making hard decisions around death.

Due to the sensitive nature of the volunteering we suggest that mentors be aged 21 or over. Volunteers would be asked to commit to the project for a minimum of six months.

Why mentor for Down to Earth?

As a volunteer mentor for Down to Earth you will have the privilege of supporting vulnerable people at the most difficult time in their lives. It’s a powerful experience that is sure to challenge your world view.
Our mentoring provides a unique opportunity to develop a broad range of transferable skills in communication, support and event planning. We provide full support from a team of end-of-life care professionals. Our mentors also benefit from full training over four days, covering such modules as:
• Death and bereavement
• The mentoring process
• The funeral process and action planning
• Financial planning and the Social Fund
• Faith and cultural awareness
• Communication and listening skills
• Dealing with difficult questions
• Recognising risk

When?

Initial interviews: Thursday 7th June 18:00 to 20:30
Training 10:00 to 16:00 on 13th, 14th, 20th and 21st June

Interested? Telephone Lawrence on             020 8983 5057       or write to LawrenceKilshaw@qsa.org.uk for an application pack or just to find out more.

Lawrence Kilshaw
Down to Earth


Quaker Social Action 
17 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, E2 9PJ
Tel:             020 8983 5057
Fax: 020 8983 5069
Web: www.quakersocialaction.com

QSA: 140 years of social action in east London; winners of a Centre for Social Justice award and a CAF Charity award, winners of the Bank of America Neighbourhoods Excellence Initiative and a New Philanthropy Capital recommended charity

Religious funerals: why Jews bury their dead

Posted by our religious correspondent, Richard Rawlinson

The first crematorium to be opened in London, in 1902, is directly opposite Golders Green Jewish Cemetery, opened in 1895. Apart from their Hoop Lane location, they share little in common. Traditional Jews, like traditional Christians and Muslims, believe in burial: and burial only in a Jewish cemetery, with a funeral at which only fellow Jews handle the body, carry the coffin and fill the grave. While Jews, like Christians, are free to lapse and go with the relativist secular flow, orthodox Jewish teaching is absolutely clear on this, whether or not it seems counter-cultural in modern liberal society.

‘Earth you are, and to earth you will return,’ were God’s words to Adam in Genesis. Jews believe the body’s natural decomposition in the earth, the source of all life, is directly commensurate with the soul’s ability to return to its divine root. They hold that the soul does not depart the body immediately, meaning incineration in a furnace would be spiritually traumatic: the soul is in an in-between state when it has no body with which to relate to the world, and is not yet free of its tenuous bonds.

This belief contrasts with the more pragmatic view, held by Buddhists and atheists alike, that upon death what is left is only matter and how remains are treated is of no consequence to the well being of the departed.

As a deterrent to cremation, ashes should not be interred in a Jewish cemetery, and the bereaved are even encouraged to go against the wishes of the deceased if contrary to tradition. Scholarly Rabbi Naftali Silberberg says: ‘While ordinarily Jewish law requires the deceased’s children to go to great lengths to respect the departed’s wishes, if someone requests to be cremated or buried in a manner which is not in accordance with Jewish tradition, we nevertheless provide him/her with a Jewish burial’.

By way of justification, he explains: ‘It is believed that since the soul has now arrived to the World of Truth it surely sees the value of a proper Jewish burial, and thus administering a traditional Jewish burial is actually granting what the person truly wishes at the moment.

‘Furthermore, if anyone, all the more so your father and mother, asks you to damage or hurt their body, you are not allowed to do so. For our bodies do not belong to us, they belong to God’.

The belief that the body is a sacred vessel for the soul, and simply on loan from God, is complemented by the belief that Man was created in God’s image, further strengthening the case against bodily mutilation. These two reasons combine to explain why religious Jews oppose tattoos and piercings, and autopsies and embalming which violate the body’s completeness, defacing it so it cannot be returned in its entirety, as it was given.

As with most laws, there are, however, exceptions. ‘After the Holocaust, many conscientious Jews gathered ashes from the extermination camp crematoria and respectfully buried them in Jewish cemeteries,’ says Silberberg.

He adds: ‘An individual who was raised in a non-religious atmosphere and was never accorded a proper Jewish education cannot be held responsible for his or her lack of observance. This general rule applies to individuals who opt to be cremated because their education and upbringing did not equip them with the knowledge necessary to make an informed choice in this area. This assumption impacts some of the legal results presented’.

While no one would deny the victims of the Nazi death camps the funeral of their faith, some might find the latter clause perhaps offers ‘wriggle room’ too far. Religious doctrine is full of such dilemmas which, on the one hand, demonstrate compassion but, on the other hand, dilute and contradict the absolutes of orthodoxy. If an unschooled Jew is, as a consequence, lapsed, should he/she have a Jewish funeral anyway? And would he/she, and the bereaved family, expect or demand one? When posed with such a question, people invariably ask, ‘What would God say?’

Footnote: The death last year of tattooed Jewish-lite pop star Amy Winehouse illustrates the reality of religious compromise. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium after a Jewish funeral service, and her remains are buried at Edgewarebury Jewish Cemetery.

Next week: Hindu funerals

Raising the money in hard times

Anne Dunbar, co-owner of a funeral home in the Dayton suburb of Springfield, Ohio, reports that 15 to 20 families a year now ask that newspaper obituaries include a plea for contributions toward funeral expenses.

It’s not uncommon, in the US, for families to raise money for a funeral, and here’s a new way of doing just that.

It’s comparatively uncommon in reticent Britain — where, to be fair, funerals aren’t nearly as expensive.

We wonder if the everlasting recession will change that. More than that, we wonder why it’s hardly ever done at all. People ask ‘Is there anything I can do?’ customarily with a helpless shrug of the shoulders. Give them the opportunity to bung a few quid into a JustGiving-alike fund and I’m sure they’d be relieved, the more so if they knew that any surplus would go to a chosen charity. 

People like to feel they’ve done their bit, that’s the point. 

Cockup

The following is an abridged version of a story in this is Cheshire

A GRIEVING sibling says she is angry and upset after the wrong picture was placed by her brother’s coffin at his funeral.

Directors at Co-op Funeralcare also forgot to lay a Manchester United flag over the coffin as directed.

The 63-year-old said: “We have been totally ignored.  Nobody has come back to me, I have to keep ringing them. We didn’t know who the man was in the picture but I was too upset to say during the service.”

After three months of calls, Mrs Banner finally received a letter of apology from the company and was told two weeks ago the fee for the service had been refunded.

She added: “If we had a sincere apology straightaway from the Co-Op that would have done it. But now I can’t let go of the idea that I couldn’t fulfill my brother’s last wishesI think they thought I was upset and if they left it long enough I would give up but they have made me angry and now I can’t let go. “I don’t think they should get away with treating people like that and I would never use them again.”

A spokesman for Co-operative Funeralcare said the flag was placed inside rather than on top of the coffin ‘due to a breakdown in communications’.

He added: “We would once again like to offer our sincere apologies to Mrs Banner and have reviewed our procedures in order to ensure that this will not happen again. We sent a letter to Mrs Banner a few weeks ago apologising and offering to reduce the cost of the funeral by means of compensation. We pride ourselves on the professional service that we provide to our clients and acknowledge that, on this occasion, our level of service fell short of our usual high standards. The celebrant, independent to Funeralcare, has expressed his apologies that the photograph he used was not a photograph of Mr Bonehill and has returned his fee.”

Ed’s note: While it’s true to say that a good celebrant will make a funeral director look good, and a bad funeral director can never make a good celebrant look bad, this story shows us that a bad celebrant can make a funeral director look awful. One is almost inclined to offer condolences to the Co-op, but not quite. 

Does this make the case for a secular funeral ritual?

Here’s an interesting and stimulating view of funerals from Guardian commenter Sussexperson:

Each to their own, and all that, but there are serious flaws in the “capturing the person” style of funeral. I’ve been involved in a depressingly large number of those over recent years, so can speak from bitter experience.

You don’t, as a rule, have very long to organise a funeral service: often, less than a week. Consequently, friends and family are scrabbling around for favourite readings, favourite music etc. If the funeral’s at the crem, you generally have to choose the least worst option from the music on offer rather than the single piece of music the dead person would really have wanted. If you’re tasked with giving the eulogy (or “saying a few words”, as it’s usually put), it’s just awful: the closer you were to the person, the less able you are to sum them up in a glib two-or-three-minute address. Result: the general attendees may come away saying the usual things about “a lovely service” or whatever, but you, the handful of nearest and dearest, know you’ve short-changed your relative/friend — that it’s all been a bit sketchy and inadequate. Horrible. And the guilt of that stays with you.

Myself, I’ve decided I don’t want to inflict all that on my own family/friends when I go. I’ve left instructions in my will that there’s to be no “saying a few words” or other DIY stuff at my funeral; it’s to be the traditional C of E Book of Common Prayer funeral service, and no nonsense. Not because I’m religious, but because it’s the most perfectly-constructed ritual I know of — and ritual is there for a reason. It externalises all the thoughts and feelings that people in grief (assuming anyone does grieve my departure!) can’t easily put into words themselves. It provides a framework. And it lets the mourners mourn, instead of foisting upon them the necessity of getting up an ad hoc bit of am-dram. Furthermore, by using the same ritual, the same words, that have been in use for centuries, it makes that single death part of a long continuity: something to be accepted as the fate of all mortals, not some exceptional outrage against natural law. Much more comforting, in my view.

Plenty of opportunity afterwards, over the funeral baked meats, for the anecdotes and personal reminiscences and quiet chuckles, if people want to do that.

In the same comments thread was this, from Remorsefulchekist:

I went to a Christian funeral and was bored witless.
I went to a Christian funeral and was moved beyond words
I went to an Atheist funeral and was bored witless.
I went to an Atheist funeral and was moved beyond words
Repeat with variations for Sikhs, Muslims, Pagans, Jews, Agnostics, Buddhists . . . 

Guardian article here

Dead Dad

Brian Appleyard writes: Mueck exhibited only one piece at the Sensation show: Dead Dad, a hyper-realistic sculpture of the corpse of his father. The first shock was that it was little more than half life-size. The second shock was — well, I’ll come back to that. Some years later, Craig Raine, the poet and critic, recalled his reaction to Dead Dad. “And there, on the floor, 3ft long, is one indisputable, obvious masterpiece… a calmly brilliant sculpture which is the contemporary equivalent of, say, Holbein’s subtle portrait of Erasmus, with its engaged intelligence and wryly amused thin mouth.”

I enjoy Mueck’s work and this sculpture in particular, reflecting how death apparently diminishes those we love.

See Brian Appleyard’s whole article here

Posted by Evelyn

For sale: Timothy Leary’s flotation tank

Are you intrigued by the healing or consciousness-changing potential of floatation tanks? Now is your chance to experience the floatation chamber in your own home with a unique piece of psychedelic history.

The winning bidder will also receive signed, framed portraits of Leary and Lillyby visionary light photographer Dean Chamberlain. These prints are valued at $1,200 each.

This Samadhi Floatation Tank was gifted to Timothy Leary in 1996 by its inventor, renowned consciousness researcher John C. Lilly, who hoped it would help ease Leary’s end-of-life suffering.

Download and read this provenance letter to learn more about the tank’s features and the historic exchange between Lilly and Leary.

Place your bid here

Quote of the day

One interesting fact I encounter is what constitutes a ‘religious funeral’. I have on a number of occasions met and prayed with distressed familes who have had humanist funerals because they thought that ‘non-religious’ meant C of E!

Comment in the Guardian here.

The Good Funeral Guide
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.