What makes a 'good' funeral?

Training to become a civil celebrant last year, prompted me to research the social and cultural role of end-of-life celebrations. I had been considering how funerals should reflect the deceased's personality, the atmosphere, and how friends and family will feel when it is over. What will make a good funeral?

Then January 2024 brought me first-hand experience of arranging a funeral. My elderly mother died.? She did not have a funeral plan, nor had she ever expressed any wishes about end-of-life celebrations.??

Celebrating mum’s life was necessary for us, as a family, and for her friends. How to celebrate mum required careful negotiations between disparate personal values and beliefs across the family.? Should we celebrate with her coffin present, or after an un-attended cremation? What music and words needed to be said? Who would come? How much would it cost????

Fortuitously, I had been introduced to a forward-thinking funeral home, Divine Ceremony , prior to this occasion. Without their support and ideas, my own knowledge, and an excellent civil celebrant listening at length to mum's life story, mum may have received a mediocre 20 minutes at the out-of-town crem.???

Instead, we had a personalised and beautiful celebration of life in ‘the Sanctuary’ room at Divine Ceremony , while mum lay in her hand painted cardboard coffin in a linked room.? We decorated the Sanctuary with mum’s handcrafted wall hangings and pictures, paper maché artefacts and knitted birds. Friends and family were able to spend reflective time quietly with the coffin before and after the ceremony.???

The celebrant, Rosalind Love, curated and told mum’s life story, which we interwove with music, poetry, and a bible reading.? We lit candles and reflected while listening to a recording of the dawn chorus in Bristol during lockdown.? Everyone received a knitted bird on their seat.? It reflected the woman everyone knew.???

Timewise it was a relaxed ceremony. No one was queuing up outside for the next slot in the crem’s busy schedule, waiting for us to be ushered out.? No worries about the timings and overrunning.? We had our post ceremony refreshments in the Sanctuary too.???

From a sustainable transport perspective, the location was ideal – 2 minutes from the bus stop, and less than 10 minutes from a suburban train station. We didn’t need to travel between venues. The ceremony was live streamed for those who could not attend due to distance or mobility issues.? Following the ceremony, mum was driven to the crematorium in a white electric hearse.???

When people tell me they have their funeral plan sorted, they mean they have paid a sum of money to a funeral company to arrange the basics.? The ceremony, who will deliver it and the content, will be someone else’s responsibility.? Many will want the local church or crematorium.? However, most people are unaware that a pub, village hall, art gallery, or garden could be the place for a fitting celebration of life, with or without the coffin present, for those without religious beliefs.? But it is difficult making choices in the week following a death, and possibly easier to fall back on convention.???

Often people are uncomfortable with mortality and discussing it for all sorts of reasons, but knowing about the options could make all the difference to how someone is remembered. Two celebrants (Ellis and Dawn ) have created a warm conversational podcast, ‘More than Brown Bread ’, exploring the options for end-of-life celebrations, and funeral practices, which I would encourage everyone to listen.? I’d be pleased if you would post your thoughts on this topic below.?

Today (1st March) would have been mum’s 96th birthday.? Happy St David’s Day everyone, and Happy Birthday mum.?