The importance of a ‘good’ funeral
Image from Netflix show ‘Four Seasons’ from CBR.com
There’s a new season of ‘Four Seasons’ on Netflix! Hooray! It’s actually been out for over a month but I’ve only just gotten around to watching it. It’s about a group of friends, three couples, who have gotten into the habit of meeting up several times a year, once a season in fact, and going on holiday together. The show charts these intensely loving, but increasingly tumultuous, relationships.
Spoiler alert: at the end of the season one Nick, one of the main characters, dies so his wife Anne and their friends are left navigating their grief and shock as well as organizing a funeral for someone whose death was completely unexpected.
The show, for laughs, then presents a funeral which is utterly tragic, not only because of the loss of Nick but because of how woefully awful the event literally is. No one can agree on what photos should be included in the photo montage so Nick’s full life is narrowed to only one viewpoint, the room for the ceremony is undecorated (because no one thought about it properly), the daughter he loved so much is not invited to contribute at all (maybe she didn’t want to but without exploring that it looks like she doesn’t care) and the urn used for his remains is, inexplicably, a red high heel shoe, because they try to save money. The funeral director’s son is in charge and is dis-interested in their grief and only what they didn’t pay for – resulting in such woeful conditions. This character who in life was so expressive, so funny, so well loved is ‘celebrated’ in a grey room with silent guests and a stupid urn. It’s not what the group wanted for him and they mention this but don’t really explore this meaningfully and I think the show uses the funeral as an invitation to remember the ‘fragility of life and cherish our loved ones’.
Well…yes…but that’s also not what funerals are really about.
It’s hard to discuss the end of life but how can we make good funeral decisions if we haven’t thought about it before?
Good funerals and the way we want to celebrate our lives or the lives of our family and friends are transformational in how we acknowledge death and accept that someone has died.
As someone who is learning how to talk to people about death, who has to gear up and actually talk to my family about what they’re thinking and what they’d want, and who wants to run Coffin Club pop ups and meet ups in Bournemouth and Poole, I’ve started to think of ways to ease people into conversations about this.
And I thought the first step could be our own personal rituals.
Look at weddings. Very few weddings don’t include something that identifies the ceremony or the celebration as ‘this is something we do as a family or ‘this is something that matters to me.’ Literally, our own rituals.
It could be a Star Wars themed wedding topper because that’s what the couple bonded over and they love to go Star Wars Celebration every year. Maybe the parent/child dance is a piece of music they always danced to when they were younger. Couples theme their wedding breakfast tables by their holiday destinations, favourite books or movies, playbills from theatre experiences. My sister and her husband did theirs based on a board game they both really love, I cannot remember anything more specific than that other than I was on the ‘Exploding Kittens’ table. My best friend labelled her tables as Legend of Zelda locations because it’s a game she and her husband love to play. Team Goron City!
We spend so much time and thought on other ceremonies and rituals like weddings, stag and hen parties, bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, baby showers, christenings, baby namings, important birthdays, a friend of mine even spent 3 weeks preparing for the party he was throwing for the England/DR Congo match. We love to celebrate, to come together and to make these events ‘ours’.
But sometimes, when it comes to funeral ceremonies, people don’t want to think about it. A good friend of mine has told me not to talk about ‘that part’ of my new job with her as she can’t bear to think about it. And I understand to a point. But that just makes it all the harder and why we get funerals that don’t feel right, like Nick’s in ‘Four Seasons’.
And if it feels like a hard conversation to have with someone maybe start with something simple: like what’s a daily ritual or something you collect that could be incorporated into your funeral ceremony.
This may be a bit weird but I’ve basically planned my housemate’s funeral. Jenny, if you’re reading this, I apologize and I’ve got no criminal intentions. Jenny collects Emma Bridgewater homeware, specifically mugs. They are beautiful ceramic mugs, decorated by hand and, at last count, she has over 30 of these mugs. If you’re not sure you’d probably recognise the iconic polka dot design. And they should be used in her funeral because she loved them and so many of her friends and family would have drunk out of them over the years (I bagsy this dachsund one).
It would be difficult to squeeze a tea drinking ceremony into the funeral ceremony in a crematorium because of time limits but, if you’re holding a funeral at a venue like a hotel, a pub, a hall or your own garden, why can’t you? I’ve heard of a funeral which started with a nature walk, paused for drinking green tea (the dead woman’s favourite beverage) at the top of a look out, before the celebrant led ceremony in her garden with a pause for more green tea.
These rituals are what makes a funeral specific and unique to you and a celebrant can help facilitate that. Even a time limited slot at a crematorium can be full of meaning and love, truly reflecting your life and story. Because celebrants like me care about giving you a ceremony that is uniquely yours and will listen to you, or to those planning your funeral once you’ve died, to ensure that happens accurately, carefully and lovingly.
If you’d like more information about Coffin Club or would like to talk to me about your own or a funeral for somebody else please get in touch. Be well!