Simon Smith urges you to learn about funerals and to become a ‘funeral friend’ for your community, sharing your knowledge to create more meaningful funerals.
The change in funerals in the last 20 years has been remarkable with over 60% now being held with a celebrant instead of a religious minister, and that proportion is even higher for funerals of people under the age of 75.
A funeral celebrant will reflect the life, values and beliefs of the person who has died not only with words, but also the ambience, include any music and songs, readings and poetry, a bit or a lot of religion, a hymn or a prayer … I would certainly want a Bob Dylan track at mine, but which one? Even now, for the most part, the fundamentals of the funeral are still based on the model of crematorium or church, hearse, Victoriana and a fairly low level of participation by family and friends. But it doesn’t need to be.
The baby boomers, (people born from 1945 following the 2nd World War), want more individual and personal funerals than the previous generation. We want a fuss! We want information and the ability to make our own decisions, not either/or choices. We want to be more involved through the whole process of the funeral, perhaps in caring for the body (that last tender thing you can do for someone), organising the funeral, designing orders of service, having a gathering around the (possibly open) coffin separate from the funeral itself, decorating a venue, driving the coffin to the funeral. The role of the funeral director is moving towards one of knowledge sharing and facilitation.
People usually hand almost everything to the funeral director, sometimes because they don’t know what else to do. Around 75% of people are cremated and the vast majority of funeral ceremonies take place at the crematorium with some in a church. I haven’t met many people who say the crematorium is their first choice of venue because it is so personal, ambient and flexible! It’s just seen to be the only choice. A funeral can be held in any venue that will accommodate it. No licence is needed.
In the weeks, years even, following the funeral, many people wonder why they feel incomplete, empty, angry and distressed, with a feeling something has been missed out. If the brief and standardised ceremony has failed to connect us intimately to the person we knew, we may feel their whole life has been undervalued, put away in a few minutes in the words of a stranger who never knew them at a place that has no meaning to us.
Join the ‘Funeral rEvolution’
Not just a different person taking the service but the whole funeral experience including the time leading up to the funeral. This does not necessarily mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater and changing everything, but instead integrating and complementing the best of the past with modern needs, values and beliefs.
I have seen many ‘different’ funerals work well for so many people that I feel confident in urging families to take courage and follow their hearts to create a meaningful funeral which fits the values and culture of the person who has died and their close circle of family and friends. With gentle help and support, it is a wonderful thing to do, leaving good memories and helping the grieving process.
The funeral industry is changing. There is a new generation of funeral companies, often founded and run by women, designed to be very client friendly and flexible. They often come with warm gentle names; Poetic Endings, Heart & Soul Funerals, Forget-Me-Not, Hand In Hand, White Feather, Poppy’s, Dandelion. Not all funeral directors are the same and one of the main roles of the ‘funeral friend’ can be to help people choose the right one to suit their needs by carrying out local research.
People can only do what they know about. The role of the ‘funeral friend’ is to gain knowledge and share it, by running groups, advising people at the time of need, knowing about your local area, for example which hotels are happy to host funerals, where the natural burial grounds are. It’s amazing how much laughter (and some tears) there is at a funeral planning evening – up to half a dozen people with a bottle of wine (or two) talking about what is most important to them, how they want to be remembered, what would be a good send-off for them.
Playwright, theatre director and ordained priest, James Roose-Evans, says in ‘Passages of the Soul – Rediscovering the Importance of Rituals in Everyday Life’:
“all great faiths have precise rituals for the dying and the dead – what rituals do we have to offer to those of no specific faith or tradition? We need good funeral ceremonies and rituals to understand our loss and the maelström of feelings associated with such loss. It is only then that we can accept, let go and feel our own sense of being in the new order of our world”.
The role of the ‘funeral friend’ is satisfying and necessary.
Simon Smith, with Jane Morrell, is author of ‘We Need To Talk About The Funeral’. Jane is one of the pioneering women of funerals who founded Green Fuse in 2000. They provide funeral celebrant and director training and own Heart and Soul Funerals in Devon.
We will happily send you a free PDF of our book if you are considering becoming a funeral friend. Email simon@heartandsoulfunerals.co.uk. As The Daily Telegraph wrote “It has all the information you need. It is also rather inspiring.”
www.greenfuse.co.uk (for training in funerals)
https://www.heartandsoulfunerals.co.uk/product/we-need-to-talk-about-the-funeral-book/
https://www.poetic-endings.com/
https://www.handinhandfunerals.co.uk/
https://whitefeatherfunerals.com
https://dandelionfarewells.com/
https://www.poppysfunerals.co.uk/
