6 July 2016 – The Good Funeral Guide

What we can learn from the funerals in Game of Thrones

Guest post by Amy Cunningham in the USA

With funeral options like earth-friendly burial in simple shroud or biodegradable casket, family-witnessed cremation, and full body sea submersion drawing more interest than ever, it’s a good time to notice that the end-of-life rituals in HBO‘s epic fantasy drama “Game of Thrones” are culturally connected. Not since “Six Feet Under,” has a TV show startled and electrified us with such fabulous funeral services. From high church to home-spun, these Celtic-y/Viking-ish pagan spectacles (that sometimes smack of a Greek/East Asian/ Mongolian influence) will affect the future funeral planning decisions of Americans now under the age of 30. To distill the wisdom in GOT’s finest send-offs (spoilers ahead!), my 19-year-old son Gordon Waldman has kindly come to my assistance. So many deaths have occurred in the six seasons that Slate magazine has been tracking them.

Here’s what we might glean–

1. Grief is real and long lasting.
It can drive you in strange and marvelous directions. Many main characters in the show are fueled by the emotions caused by loss. Cersei Lannister is basically driven to madness over the deaths of her children, while Arya Stark seeks gruesome revenge against those who murdered her family.

2. Bodies are important.
The phrase “bring out your dead” seems operative. Death is not a medical event, it’s a community experience, whether it’s the head of Ned Stark on a pike or yet another formal visitation with viewing in King’s Landing. I too want a golden burial shroud and loads of votive candles!

3. It’s nice to have the support of a hospice worker, death doula or home funeral guide to help you bathe and groom the deceased person’s body soon after death.
I’m impressed with the work of the Silent Sisters (the death midwifes of the Seven Kingdoms who collect, bathe, and shroud the dead). They remind me of my saintly sisters in the National Home Funeral Alliance, though we are far from silent at the moment.

4. Rituals employing one of the elements–fire, water, earth, air–help grieving families process the loss.
The countless cremations conducted by the Night’s Watch are contrasted with the epic sea burials used by House Greyjoy. All are transformative.

5. The more you involve yourself with the care of the dead and the funeral itself, the more you might help yourself heal.
There have been too many pyre lightings to mention, but the lesson seems to be–get in there, don’t hold back, participate in the funeral and heal.

6. It is best not to make large demands of other family members at the funeral.
Jaimie and Cersei break this rule far too much, and have their most bizarre exchanges in front of the bier.

7. Stay flexible.
Funerals aren’t supposed to be perfect, and sometimes you have to change plans on a dime. Season six finale (spoiler alert!) shows Cersei spontaneously selecting cremation instead of entombment for her newly deceased son Tommen since, in a complex twist of fate, she’s just blown up their version of Westminster Abbey, where every other dead relative, up to then, had been placed in crypts.

8. Hang in there, get support.
As Daenerys learned after her Dothraki husband’s cremation, you never “get over” the death of someone close to you. But you will, in time, “get with” the loss and walk on with it. You might even hatch three dragons!

The cremation of Maester Aemon required four people to light each corner of the twiggy pyre. “He was the blood of the Dragon, but now his fire has gone out.” The memorable funeral service starts 90 seconds into this Youtube.com video.

Ed’s note: Today’s guest post comes from the other side of the pond. Amy Cunningham, is the owner of the recently launched and much needed Fitting Tribute Funeral Services in Brooklyn, USA. She specialises in green burials in cemeteries certified by the Green Burial Council, simple burials within the NYC- Metropolitan area, home funerals, and cremation services at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery’s gorgeous crematory chapels. She also helps residents of New York with affordable and sustainable funerals. She’s a rare find in the New York funeral scene. We have a lot of time for her much needed holistic approach to funerals. If you’re ever in America, track her down.

Amy Cunningham, Fitting Tribute Funeral Services

Sizzling Summer continued..

Now that the sun has come out a bit and the Wimbledon quarter finals have been reached, the attraction of spending daylight time at conferences and seminars about funerals has waned a little – however, the GFG is nothing if not self sacrificing, so this week that’s just what we’ve been doing.

Also, having rather cheekily asked for a free ticket to the CBCE conference, which is organised by The Cremation Society of Great Britain and The Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities (who were not on friendly terms with us back in 2014, see here) – and kindly been given one, it would have been churlish not to go along.

So on Monday and Tuesday this week we joined members and delegates in Stratford-upon-Avon, and sat in on some really rather excellent talks. Among them were presentations from some good friends of the GFG and people whose work we are very interested in: – Dr. John Troyer PhD from the Centre for Death and Society spoke on the subject of ‘All things dead are new again’ and gave a fascinating insight into society’s approach to death since the 1970’s, that period of social and political upheaval with very bad fashion. Did you know, for instance, that between 1968 and 1972 there were around 1,200 books published on the subject of death and bereavement? There was a huge interest in debating death and end of life issues that is largely now overshadowed by more recent ideas of death being a taboo.

Dr. Brian Parsons, (who has lots of letters after his name – more about him here) illustrated the exceptional promotion of cremation in the South London area between 1914 and 1939 and how this was achieved, showing us advertisements and leaflets from early in the 20^th century and demonstrating how society’s view of cremation in this part of the country was changed in a much faster way than elsewhere in the UK as crematoria sprang up in close proximity to each other. (By 1939, within an 11.5 mile radius of the offices of Frederick Paine in Kingston, there were six crematoria to choose from.

Sandy Sullivan from Resomation Ltd gave an update on the developments so far, as he continues to push for the necessary legislative change in the UK to enable the first installation to take place here. In the USA there are three Resomation units in operation and over 2,000 Resomations have been carried out. No longer partnered by Co-operative Funeralcare, Sandy has a new partner in The LBBC Group, and his enthusiasm is undimmed by the long years of trying to get a Resomation unit operative here in Britain.

A second fascinating presentation yesterday came from Tony Ennis, CEO of ecoLegacy, whose ecoLation process is described as a disruptive, next-generation, environmental and ethical alternative to burial and cremation. Using freezing, heat and pressure, the ecoLation process is a way of breaking down the body to an elemental level until the only thing left is biologically inert dust. Half a billion dollars of equipment is to be deployed in the introduction of ecoLation units in the next five years, with the first commercial unit to be launched in Dublin in October. We’ll be going to have a look at it for you.

James Norris, our good friend from Dead Social and the Digital Legacy Association gave warning about the need for preparation for our death online and explored how we remember those who have died through social media and their ongoing online presence. He talked about the resources available for professionals from the DLA and how these could be used as a soft approach to open conversations about death by asking, for example, whether you have a password / security code to access your phone, tablet or laptop (the vast majority of us do) and whether you have told anyone else what that is. Well, have you? If you haven’t, then the huge amount of information held on your devices won’t be accessible when you die.

Dr. Mary Ross-Davie, the Education Project Manager for Maternal Health, NHS Education for Scotland recounted the multi-agency coordinated response to the Rt. Hon. Lord Bonomy’s report on infant cremation, and the resulting introduction of a new Code of Practice and new guidance for professionals working with newly bereaved parents. Of particular note is the newly accepted definition of ashes ‘All that is left in the cremator at the end of the cremation process following the removal of any metal’ – irrespective of their composition.

There was a detailed and comprehensive presentation from Dr. Anne Eyre PhD. looking at dealing with disasters and the implications for death care professionals. Drawing on her personal and professional experience, Dr. Eyre talked in depth about the essential need, both social and symbolic, to re-identify the dead in any disaster situation as persons, not just bodies, and how critical it is that people bereaved by disaster be given choice and control. In disasters, a person becomes an object, one of the dead, and society insists that disaster victims be treated as persons, not bodies – a person-to-object-to-person transformation through painstaking efforts to re-personalise the dead.

“Every effort needs to be made to turn bodies into persons. In this process of personalization, considerable respect is shown in handling bodies.

It is clear that something very important and very fundamental is occurring, for the dead are not socially dead unless the right steps are taken leading to an individual’s funeral.

To the dead, it may not matter, but it does to the living… the living will, if at all possible, not let go of the dead until the body involved is respectfully converted back into an individual person.”

Other speakers were Leona McAllister from Plotbox, who told the delegates about how the future ‘Memorial Parks’ could look, and P. Scott Odom, director / architect from GoldenAge – Mausoleum Solutions Ltd. who talked about community mausoleums in the USA.

The long day yesterday ended for us with the Presidents Panel, where four representatives from different trade organisations (SAIF, FBCA, NAMM and the Co-operative Funeral Services Managers Association) gave their thoughts about various subjects to the room. It was time to pack up and come home.