Funerals Blog!

Nobody wants to talk about dying. All of us hide behind a veil of procrastination, thinking that we have all the time in the world, thinking that 'it won't happen to us yet'. Talking about what we would like to happen at our funerals, has always been considered morbid, sombre, not a conversation in front of the children!

Thinking about it, it's actually our society that has stripped us of the ability to discuss it; we all expect it to be a topic reserved for our twilight years. In actual fact, we are lucky to get old, age is very much a privilege not a right.

Each and every one of us traverse through several 'Rites of Passage' in our lifetime; we all start in the same way, we grow, reproduce (sometimes!), we buddy up with another human, we have fun (hopefully!), we age, we eventually die. It is coming to us all. 

Before you stop reading, thinking 'Gosh, this woman is dreary!', just listen to my theory. We are getting better at planning; direct cremations are becoming more popular, financial plans and gifting can be arranged, but not many people think about the words that are spoken afterwards. Mostly, this is left to our bereft loved ones and friends. Silly really, as we are the best gatekeepers of our stories! So my theory is....don't lose out on your magnificent life story, take control of it!

When I meet with families to prepare funeral ceremonies, memorials, celebration of life ceremonies, I work with the closest people to the deceased. This is often their spouse, sometimes children,  sadly sometimes parents, close relatives, friends, work colleagues and even neighbours and carers. It is always good to have a mix of people involved with piecing together an appropriate eulogy, spanning different episodes of their life. Unfortunately, this is rare and often large periods of time are not accounted for, as others have passed themselves, or separated or gone on a different path. I always find this sad as it's a bit of their life that is missing.

A Living Eulogy is exactly what it says on the tin! Its an organic approach to building a farewell speech or tribute for our final bow. Eulogies are either written in the 'first' or 'third' person, it depends on what a client requires. We don't have to make it vanilla and chronological either; we can include greatest life achievements, character traits, moments of elation and pride, what they want to be remembered for, significant life events, final messages and lessons learnt.

My Living Eulogy service includes a few different options, all begin with an initial collation of information and preparation of a draft script.  Once approved this could be kept alongside a Will and/or included in a funeral plan. Or, alternatively, we could revisit the script at intervals (months/years) and regularly update it with new chapters (this is bound by a simple contract). Finally, I can also combine the eulogy into a full funeral script and also deliver the ceremony once the person has passed. 

We all have great stories to tell; there is that cheesy cliché , stating that 'we all have a book inside us'. Some requiring more censoring than others but all recording the time of our life!

If you would like to learn more about this service, please drop me a line.