22/06/2024
DIRECT CREMATIONS - are they the answer?
Many of you will have seen the frequent advertisements on TV for Direct Cremations. Many a loved one see this and think that it is the solution - it relieves loved ones of the burden of paying for a funeral. And it does. And while I applaud anyone who plans ahead there is one matter they may not have considered.
Funerals are for the LIVING not the dead.
As living breathing human beings we have an intrinsic need to say our goodbyes. And while they come in many forms, so many families are contacting me now to conduct a service of farewell, come celebration of life ceremony for their loved one who had a direct cremation. After the loved one has died and been cremated they felt something was “missing”. They felt they had never had the chance to have a proper goodbye, a goodbye for friends too. Not a party. But something more heart healing, a ritual, a ceremony, a soulful goodbye.
The ceremony/service can be at any venue, I have conducted them in a home, a bowling club, a hotel, a race course, a village hall to name only a few. As well as this one… a lovely family wished to say a proper goodbye to their very special husband and father who had arranged his own direct cremation. They privately hired from the council a local non-denominational cemetery chapel in beautiful grounds and we had the most beautiful well attended service.
