The thankful funeral

I’ve had the privilege of conducting several funerals, memorial services, and interments, along with many palliative care visitations, and journeying with those close to death.  When you think about it—this is something I think about at EVERY funeral—it’s only a matter of time before each of us is the only one not alive in the body at our own funeral!

Sobering.  I guess.

And certainly, as I reflect, especially at tragic funerals, some leave you impacted deeply.

But what makes a funeral remarkable in the best of ways?

I think of it as a thankful funeral—like the dear loved one who said to me recently, in the context of her own eventual death, “I’m not actually a sad person.”

It’s actually my mother that said that—a person who approaches life with joy despite the challenges, like many have.  I’m so thankful to be able to have some of these precious conversations now, before the time passes for such opportunities—none of us is guaranteed passage into tomorrow.

Each day is an exquisite gift.  Nobody knows the time, day, hour, or second where the grant for their life in this world is revoked.

It kind of hit home that some people would hate for people to feel overwhelming sorrow rather than be thankful for what their life stood for, and how they lived it—joy, gratitude, humour, thankfulness, and the like.

Sure, everyone has their right to grieve exactly as they do and will.  Nobody has the right to question a person, or judge them, for how they experience loss and express grief.

So, it’s wonderful when the thankful funeral occurs when the person’s life is celebrated.  Within thankfulness there’s still room for sorrow, sadness for the fact that they’re no longer to fill their space in our lives.

One thing I love about planning funerals is the thought that many put in through their own planning, to exercise control that only they can—usually by saying, “Make it a celebration of my life, the way I lived it, the impact I was able to make... for the good purposes of life.”

Some funerals, it must be said, can be no other than anguished requiems, however.  No disputing that.  I’ve conducted a few of those, where the people who attend to mourn come in that confused state of the deepest, most perplexing, confounding grief.  There are no apologies needed or given, and it is just as much an honour serving at those funerals and meeting the aggrieved the best I can.  The rawness of grief leaves airs and graces at the door, and there is great capacity for honesty, which I love.

Then there are the oft-common funerals in this day when hardly anyone’s allowed to attend.  I don’t think any of us has ever anticipated such a day where so few would be able to attend, except the epidemiologists.  I empathise for your pain if you’ve been blindsided like this.

It’s a great honour to attend a thankful funeral, where the person is celebrated, and there is joy for their memory, to remember them with fondness for the positive impact they made in our lives.

This is also an opportunity to reflect on the legacy we, ourselves, are leaving.  Like the Stephen Covey ‘Seven Habits for Highly Effective People’ training I did 15 years ago—what will people say about you are your funeral.  Leaves us always with something to ponder.