Where the tree falls, the forest rises
From The Rising, by Wendell Berry There is a grave, too, in each survivor. By it, the dead one lives. He enters us, a broken blade, sharp, clear as a lens or mirror. Like a wound, grief receives him. Like graves, we heal over, and yet keep as part of ourselves the severe gift. By […]
My way or the highway
Posted by Richard Rawlinson, religious correspondent The was once a funeral sermon by a US Catholic priest in which he berates those members of the congregation who are only in church because it’s a loved one’s funeral, but whose own souls are in mortal danger after skipping Mass on a regular basis. Some might be […]
An Alaskan funeral
Writing in the Anchorage Daily News, writer Michael Carey gives this account of an Alaskan funeral. The mourners included half a dozen men scattered throughout the church who looked as if they were on work release: leathers, tattoos, unkempt hair and beards, the aura of hard living, men never domesticated by women. They were in […]
Euphemisms 2: Pushing up daisies
Posted by Vale As an industry, the funeral business is often told it should be careful about the use of euphemisms – (Collins English Dictionary – euphemism the deliberate or polite use of a pleasant or neutral word or expression to avoid the emotional implications of a plain term, as passed over for died.) At […]
I’m not religious but there’s something about funerals…
Posted by Belinda Forbes From the moment I had booked myself onto a course to become a secular funeral celebrant, it started happening. Like when you get married, get pregnant or get a puppy. Suddenly everywhere you turn, it’s about weddings, what the expectant mum shouldn’t eat or drink, and how you should never play […]
Death Cafe
This post is reproduced with permission from Jayd Kent’s One Queer Femme Anatomy blog. It describes the first-ever pop-up death cafe, the brainchild of Jon Underwood, curator of the Death Cafe blog and one of the nicest and, underneath that, brainiest people you could meet. A death cafe is long-held dream of John. How marvellous […]
The things they say
Over at the Connecting Directors site in America a funeral director observes: Never trust a funeral director who says, “This is the last thing you can do for your loved one.” What other upselling tricks and wiles do our native undertakers possess? Including facial expressions?
Undertakers’ nightmares #1 – the Social Fund Funeral Payment
Posted by Nick Gandon Methinks that the lunatics have taken over the asylum at the Department for Work and Pensions. Maybe lunatics is an unkind (and no doubt very non-pc) description, which on reflection, I should perhaps replace with the term “jobsworths”. Long known throughout the undertaking profession for their crazy deliberations over the claims […]
The Last Performance
At a funeral home death is something that may become a daily routine. And it is also where some kind of performance is taking place. ‘The last performance’ is a behind-the-scenes look at the place where funeral rites are prepared. Directed by Jorge Tur Moltó. On Vimeo here.
What does dying feel like?
Philip Gould, one of the architects of New Labour, is dying of cancer. In a way, he says, it’s a privilege to be in his position – to have a deadline, to be given a chance to sort everything. “I do really feel I know where I am now.” Don’t get me wrong, he says […]
