29/07/2023
“I hate funerals”.
I hear people say this quite often.
I used to say it myself!
I thought that funerals were purely designed to make you feel as upset as possible right in the kind of public setting where you don’t want to cry; among some people that you are close to but a lot that you aren’t.
I had been to quite a few funerals that just didn’t seem right for the person who had died and that weren’t that comforting for the people they had left behind.
My own mum’s funeral was one of those. It was the upset of that in fact that inspired me to train as a civil celebrant. Through my brilliant training with the Celebrant Training Academy Scotland I came to understand how a well-written, personalised ceremony creates a shared understanding of the person who has died and how that person’s story written from the heart helps to bring some kind of closure. Those things really make a difference. There are usually people around the grieving family who knew the person well but also others who didn’t. They all help each other. A good funeral ceremony is a “team effort” in coming to terms with what has happened and also honouring the life of the person who is gone. And the process of working with a celebrant to create an individualised funeral ceremony in itself can be a first step along the way to healing the shock and loss.
After I had qualified I wrote and led my own beloved dad’s funeral ceremony. I’m not saying that I enjoyed it and I don’t expect anyone who was there would say that either. But what I do know was that it did justice to my dad and it helped us all to feel more understood in our loss. We were able to focus on our love for our dad and on our gratitude for his life which was a comfort to us in our grief.
That’s the best anyone can wish for in a bereavement situation. It’s what I would like for you and for anyone else who is coping with a death.
If there is anything more you’d like to ask, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] and we can arrange a time to talk ❤️.
