Archive: 2011

Archbishop Hannan’s funeral

4 October 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Religious funerals

Nearly 200 priests of the Archdiocese of New Orleans squeezed into a seminary chapel Monday and chanted ancient Christian prayers of penance and confidence in the afterlife around the body of Archbishop Philip Hannan.

The prayer service at Notre Dame Seminary marked the formal beginning of four days of funeral rites for Hannan, 98, who died last week, 46 years after coming to New Orleans. 

Hannan will lie in repose at the seminary until Wednesday when, according to plans the Archdiocese of New Orleans released Monday, the St. Augustine High School Marching Band will lead a horse-drawn carriage bearing his body down Canal Street toward St. Louis Cathedral.

The rites will end with a final funeral Mass there Thursday at 2 p.m., the archdiocese said.

At the close of the 34-minute prayer service, church officials opened the seminary to allow members of the public to file past Hannan’s casket. That will continue Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

More here. 

Square Pegs in Round Holes

4 October 2011
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Books, funeral directors

 

Posted by Charles

Love him or hate him, Barry Albin-Dyer is Britain’s only celebrity undertaker. Love it or hate it, he’s written another book.

It’s called Square Pegs in Round Holes. It’ll appeal to fellow undertakers up and down the country because it promises to reveal the secrets of his enviable business success. But its lessons are not exclusive to Dismal Traders. Barry’s Way may (or may not) be appealing to all manner of entrepreneurial people.

He’s nothing if not ambitious: “From the outset, my goal was to make Albin’s the best funeral business in the world. I’d like to think I’ve done that.” Undertakers hoping to pick up a trick or two are likely to be disappointed. Albin-Dyer does not go into operational detail. But two essential characteristics of a successful undertaker which are abundantly personified by Albin-Dyer were accurately detected when he was at school. His headmaster observed: “He undoubtedly possesses considerable aplomb and a great capacity for organisation.” Spot on. He’s a high-functioning showman. All the best undertakers are.

Much of Albin-Dyer’s recipe for success is orthodox enough – homespun, even. He’s a down-to-earth man, rooted in his beloved Bermondsey. He loves to make a difference and he loves to put something back. I don’t doubt for a moment that he is one of life’s nice guys. For him, there is a high moral value in honest, hard work. He believes that a business must have an ethos; he calls this ‘the goodness’.

As a boss he comes across as a hands-on benevolent despot. Each day begins with a staff breakfast for information sharing and team building. There’s even a 5-a-side football team. Everyone’s bonded and very disciplined. And you never know where Barry’s going to pop up next. There’s nothing radical about the way he does things, but there’s plenty of thoroughness. And buzz, too. His would seem to be a small business of the very best and most vibrant sort.

He is aware of the importance of embracing change – and of putting the business into the hands of his two sons before he gets too old to change. Well, nothing changes all that fast in the funeral industry, so there’s little challenge here; the changes he identifies in the course of his working life hardly made the earth move. He can’t see a future for an online planning service. He may be wrong about that. I’m not sure that his use of a call centre serves the cause of personal service.

Albin-Dyer has lived through interesting times which must have exposed him to temptations to go really big. The conclusion he has drawn from the activities of the consolidators, from Howard Hodgson and SCI through to present day operations like Dignity, Co-op, Laurel Management, Funeral Services partnership et al, is that they don’t work: “Large funeral companies spread themselves too thinly and aren’t able to provide the kind of personal service that small companies like us can.” He doesn’t want to lose ‘the goodness’. I wonder if he’s right about this. Sure, the present crop of consolidators gets things serially wrong. Dignity is the brand that dare not speak its name, and the others are little better. Funeralcare’s trying a little harder. But our shopping malls are full of admired brands. There’s no reason why funeral directing should be any different. There remains much opportunity for a successful operator, in my view. I mean, if John Lewis did funerals…

Albin-Dyer steers clear of philosophy. He doesn’t talk about how funerals can be experiences which are transformative of grief. No Thomas Lynch, he; if he broods on these things, he doesn’t brood on them in this book. Not only does he exemplify the near-universal separation between undertaker and ceremony maker, he asserts that the two have nothing to say to each other: “I know that there are clearly defined boundaries between my role and the role of the priest or vicar. And I make sure that neither I nor any of my staff ever step across it.”

No mention of secular celebrants and the changes they are bringing to the way we do funerals. No thoughts about the opportunities for creative collaboration with ceremony makers of all stripes, and joining up this great disconnect between the cortege and the ceremony. That’s an eyebrow-raising oversight. Don’t get left behind, Barry.

Buy Square Pegs in Round Holes here. 

The Surprising Satisfactions of a Home Funeral

3 October 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: alternative funerals, death and funerals, DIY funeral, funeral, funeral customs

Posted by Vale

“So a few weeks before Bob died, my 15-year-old son, Harper, and I made a coffin out of plywood and deck screws from Home Depot…We routed rabbet joints for a tight construction.
“I guess we wouldn’t want him falling out the bottom,” Harper said.
“That would reflect poorly on our carpentry skills,” I agreed.

Max Alexander has written a fascinating account of two contrasting funerals. One, a home funeral, for his father in law (Bob, on the left in the photograph) the second, more conventional, for his father (Jim, on the right in the photograph). His description of what happened is warm, intimate and very moving:

“When Bob died, on a cold evening in late November, Sarah, her sister Holly and I gently washed his body with warm water and lavender oil as it lay on the portable hospital bed in the living room. (Anointing a body with aromatic oils, which moisten the skin and provide a calming atmosphere for the living, is an ancient tradition.) I had been to plenty of funerals and seen many a body in the casket, but this was the first time I was expected to handle one. I wasn’t eager to do so, but after a few minutes it seemed like second nature. His skin remained warm for a long time—maybe an hour—then gradually cooled and turned pale as the blood settled. While Holly and I washed his feet, Sarah trimmed his fingernails. (No, they don’t keep growing after death, but they were too long.) We had to tie his jaw shut with a bandanna for several hours until rigor mortis set in, so his mouth would not be frozen open; the bandanna made him look like he had a toothache.

We worked quietly and deliberately, partly because it was all new to us but mainly out of a deep sense of purpose. Our work offered the chance to reflect on the fact that he was really gone. It wasn’t Bob, just his body.

Bob’s widow, Annabelle, a stoic New Englander, stayed in the kitchen during most of these preparations, but at some point she came in and held his hands. Soon she was comfortable lifting his arms and marveling at the soft stillness of her husband’s flesh. “Forty-four years with this man,” she said quietly.”

The full account of both funerals can be found here.

Max took inspiration from an organisation called Crossings, that acts as a home funeral and green burial resource center. Crossing, they say, exists “to foster the integration of dying and after-death care back into our family and community life.” Their site can be found here.

Funeral potatoes

1 October 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: funeral food

Posted by Charles

A great recipe here for all bereaved people wondering what to serve at the do afterwards.

Undertakers, celebrants and other funeral industry professionals might like to serve this (with a dark chuckle) at supper parties. 

Funeral potatoes

Serves 8 to 10

You’ll need one 30-ounce bag of frozen shredded (not cubed) hash brown potatoes.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 onions, chopped fine
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half
1¾ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
8 cups frozen shredded hash brown potatoes
½ cup sour cream
4 cups sour-cream-and-onion potato chips, crushed

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook onion until softened, about 5 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until golden, about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in broth, half-and-half, salt, thyme, and pepper and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, 3 to 5 minutes. Off heat, whisk in cheddar until smooth.

2. Stir potatoes into sauce, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, over low heat until thawed, about 10 minutes. Off heat, stir in sour cream until combined.

3. Scrape mixture into 13 by 9-inch baking dish and top with potato chips. Bake until golden brown, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes. Serve.

To make ahead: Potato mixture can be refrigerated in baking dish, covered with aluminum foil, for 2 days. To finish, bake potatoes 20 minutes. Remove dish from oven and uncover. Top with potato chips and bake until golden brown, 45 to 50 minutes.

Found at this great website: http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/recipes/funeral-potatoes/

Where the tree falls, the forest rises

30 September 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Grief

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 grief, more inward than darkness,

the dead become the intelligence of life.

Where the tree falls, the forest rises.

There is nowhere to stand but in absence,

no life but in the fateful light.

Charlene Elderkin, eminent home funeralist and member of the Threshold Care Circle in Wisconsin, is writing a book: a collection of stories offering an intimate glimpse into the personal renewal experienced following the death of a loved one. 

She is looking for contributors with story submissions that offer an intimate glimpse into personal renewal following the death of a loved one or community member. Without denying the experience of grief and loss, these first-hand accounts illustrate how ordinary people find a way to integrate the death of their beloved into a forever-changed life. How this integration unfolds and when is as varied as the people writing their stories.

It’s to be called Where the Tree Falls, the Forest Rises. Find her website here. 

 

My way or the highway

30 September 2011
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: crematoria, funeral customs, Religious funerals, Secular approaches to death

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 appalled by this opportunistic sabotage of a ceremony where the bereaved are bidding farewell to the deceased. A secular equivalent might be a British Humanist Association celebrant choosing a civil funeral to evangelise atheism by refusing to condone religious hymns, declaring that if the bereaved insist on such quasi-theist practices, he/she will declare that, ‘as a humanist I will not be taking part’.

To those celebrants flexible enough to tailor funerals to varying tastes, criticism of lapsed or half-baked faith or pick ‘n’ mix agnosticism might seem inappropriate. What’s more important for them is to do one’s best to show respect and sensitivity, accepting some will want frills of different hues, others will want the least fuss possible, allowing more time to laugh and cry over a booze-up at the main event, the post-committal party.

But where are more individualistic belief systems leading society – whether atheistic or ‘designer faiths’ cut to suit personal preferences? In some ways, both the stern shepherd priest and the bossy BHA militant are clear and decisive, but only if preaching to the converted. In the ‘consumer is king’ world, they’re arrogant prigs.

In his book, Futurecast, US religion statistics expert George Barna says the one-person-one-religion trend is a rejection of the boring services of organised religion. But he notes individualism is causing fracture. If everyone is pretty much on their own, you lose some of the capacity to make connections. It’s also triggering hostility towards institutions; government and industry, as well as organised religion and inflexible BHA God-haters.

All this makes it challenging to devise formulaic, communal rituals that are relevant to the individualism forming today’s civil funerals. Perhaps it simply isn’t possible, and we should be grateful that existing practices do indeed already unite those involved through personalised eulogies, songs and readings in the presence of the deceased. Symbolic acts such as liberating doves, ringing bells or assigning time to silent contemplation are an added ritualistic bonus but are unlikely to achieve the resonance of faith ritual.

It might be useful to study the Church’s way further. Churches are at an advantage as they’re beloved, familiar places of communal bonding that offer pastoral care before and after the funeral, as well in everyday life whether grieving or not. The rituals are not deemed extraordinary because they’re familiar by virtue of their weekly repetition.

To develop this point, allow me to briefly digress: while uncomfortable with the aforesaid priest’s modu operandi, the saying ‘Get yourself to Mass and your brain will follow’ resonates with me. The sacrament works because I’m open to the peace-giving and inspirational qualities of the Catholic faith. We eat when hungry, sleep when tired, work in order to earn money and gain spiritual nourishment from the Holy Eucharist. To those not receptive to the joyful mysteries of the Mass, its communal liturgy might seem far from an integral part of life, more pointless and dull in fact.

Living in London, I’m a member of a vibrant parish community participating in traditional Masses in a beautiful church with warm, erudite priests and an excellent master of music and choir. I’ve often wondered guiltily if I’d be so receptive if my local church was an edge-of-town bungalow with budget ceremony. I’ve been to such Masses and can honestly say – with or without lace, vestments, bells and smells; in spite of banal homilies, guitars in the sanctuary, and screaming kids in the pews – the Holy Eucharist remains a manna that brings miraculously a purer love, awe, gratitude, humility and inner peace than anything else on Earth. It’s familiar but extraordinary because of its meaning, not its ‘physical’ parts.

Crematoria as a backdrop for ritual are not ideal, strange, one-off places visited under duress in order to dispose of loved ones in a furnace. In a previous blog, I mentioned the North Texas Church of Freethought, a kind of community centre for atheists attempting to offer ‘all the educational, inspirational, and social and emotional benefits of traditional faith-based churches’. This extreme and most likely financially unviable option is perhaps more likely to be overrun by the didacts than the anything-goes liberals. Members of both camps might also find the concept too close for comfort to organised religion. So what are the alternatives for those seeking to escape the clock-watching charmlessness of the crematorium, and perhaps develop rituals that resonate?

Is there sufficient demand for two separate venues, church substitute for ceremony, crematorium for committal? And what are the options for church substitutes: hotels, homes, hilltops for alfresco funeral pyres? A ballroom in the former offers seating space and hospitality services but may be expensive and impersonal even if the manager found a way of sneaking in coffins without upsetting the guests. Homes may be too small for big turn-outs and outdoor funeral pyres are, I believe, currently illegal (good luck with your campaign, Rupert).

Wherever civil funerals are held and however much communal ritual is included, there’s conflict between individualism and commune, free-spirited ego and membership of a ‘club’ greater than its individual parts.

An Alaskan funeral

29 September 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: funerals in other cultures

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 their forties, like the man who died.

One of them sat in front of me. Tall, sinewy — in blue jeans, a faded long-sleeve shirt, and boots. I couldn’t see a tattoo but was willing to bet he had one. He wore an Oakland Raiders do-rag over his hair. I wondered if the Raiders’ bandana had simply been at hand or was a statement, given the Raiders reputation as outlaws.

There had been a viewing before the service, and the casket stood open in front of the first row of mourners. A plain box, neither painted nor varnished, beautiful in its fresh simplicity.

The rector of Saint Matthew’s, Scott Fisher, began the service by announcing it was time to close the casket. Two Native men carried in the top and took a few moments to ensure the top and bottom aligned properly. Then one of them used a battery-powered screwdriver to drill screws into the coffin, one on each corner, one on each side. A piercing whine filled the church six times.

After that, the two men placed a tanned moose hide — a large, fringed hide — over the casket.

A couple things about Alaska Native funerals for those who have never attended one. They are bound to be long. The Book of Common Prayer contains optional elements for the standard service for the dead. Alaska Natives don’t do optional. They want the entire service.

Second, the music. We sang a number of traditional Protestant hymns, but they didn’t sound traditional. Interior Natives love country and western music, and “What A Friend I Have in Jesus” can come arranged by George Jones.

If the Holy Ghost was present, so was the ghost of Hank Williams.

Scott Fisher shepherded us through the service with a Native preacher who recited prayers in English and Athabascan.

The preacher played several hymns on a guitar and led the congregation in song before delivering a sermon in which he interpreted Ecclesiastes from a Native villager’s perspective. He closed by asking the Natives in the audience to take care of their young and admonished all of us to stop drinking alcohol.

Five or six people came forward to offer their memories of the dead man, including siblings on the verge of tears who had one message: I loved him.

The last speaker was the man in front of me wearing the Raiders do-rag who hastily walked to the altar, turned toward the mourners, nodded to Scott Fisher, and placed the fingers of his right hand straight up and down on the moose-hide covered casket. He kept his fingers on the casket until he finished — as if attempting to maintain contact with the dead man,Vernon.

He began by looking straight atVernon’s parents as he said, “I know death. My mother died. My father died. My sisters died. I know death.”

He told three stories, all aboutVernon, all three to illustrate the same point: My friend lived up to the construction worker’s honor code. He was hard-working, trustworthy and, when given authority, fair. A man who is hard working trustworthy and fair is a righteous construction worker.

The do-rag man explained how he metVernon. He was new on a job, and at lunch,Vernoncame over and sat down next to him.Vernondidn’t say much but eventually asked, “What’s that tattoo mean?,” pointing to the do-rag man’s bare arm. “It’s the date my son died,” replied the do-rag man. “Oh,” saidVernonretreating into silence. From there, the two men became friends.

The do-rag man was about finished. He closed this way.

“When my son died, I had to go toBaltimorefor the funeral. I had spent most of my life around here and didn’t know anything about Camden Yards or the New Jersey Turnpike. After a while I was driving around looking for my hotel, lost. I kept driving and driving, lost and more lost. Finally, I came to a stoplight and felt like I would fall to pieces. I couldn’t take it any more. And I prayed to my son, ‘Please, please take me to the hotel where I can rest. Please.’ The light turned, and I drove a couple blocks. There was the hotel.

“Please don’t forget the power of prayer.”

With that, the do-rag man returned to his seat and the service reached its final stage.

Full story here.

Euphemisms 2: Pushing up daisies

29 September 2011
Charles
11 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death

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 it’s best a euphemism can help someone talk about what can hardly be faced or imagined. At its worst, of course, it can sound mealy mouthed, dishonest or even – for the funeral trade – like the  professional language of death.  

But we all do it. I found this list on mylastsong.com:

Assumed room temperature (popular among mortuary technicians);
Bit the big one;
Brown bread (Cockney rhyming slang);
Carked it, (or karked);
Fallen off the perch;
Hopped the twig;
Been taken from us;
Gone somewhere better;
He’s now with (name of closest deceased loved one;
It was his time to go;
Not hanging around any more;
Threw a double-six;
Kicked the bucket;
Put out to pasture;
He/she bought the farm (US military]);
Gone West (RAF, to ‘Go West into the setting sun’);
It was curtains (as in the crematorium curtains, or the curtains coming down when the play ends);
Faced the final curtain;
It was tickets for him;
Walked through the Pearly Gates;
Gone to a better place;
Checked out;
Gone to the great …in the sky;
Turned up his toes;
Snuffed it;
It was a ‘take out’ in a body bag;
Croaked;
Pushing up the daisies;
Feeding the worms;
Feeding the fishes;
Sleeping with the fishes;
Dead as a Dodo;
Dead as a doornail;
Dead as a doormouse;
Passed over;
Passed on;
Having his final sleep;
The Late …;
Lost (as in ‘We ‘lost’ my father);
Not dead but ‘gone before’;
Drawn his last breath;
Departed this life;
Shuffled off this mortal coil;
End one’s days;
Peg out/To peg;
Given up the ghost;
Gone to see his maker;
Met his maker;
Never woke up;
Keeping the angels company;
Singing with the angels;
Popped his clogs;
Been deleted.

My favourite ’he rolled over and stuck his spoon into the wall’ (from a Georgette Heyer novel of all places) isn’t on the list – what’s yours?

I’m not religious but there’s something about funerals…

28 September 2011
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: alternative funerals, celebrants, ceremony, funeral customs, Religious 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 tug of war with a puppy.  Oops!  Too late.

So, three years ago, having resigned from my job as a teacher, I was looking forward to my course on writing and conducting non-religious funerals when I read an article in the Sunday Times.  To sum it up, the non-religious journalist Minette Marrin extols the virtues of tradition and religion for funeral ceremonies.

http://www.minettemarrin.com/minettemarrin/2008/08/im-not-religiou.html

I was so annoyed, I wrote to her: 

Your article, “I’m not religious, but there’s something about funerals” makes the point that non-religious funerals do not quite hit the mark and are not a proper end.    Most funerals I have attended were Christian ceremonies, and in almost every case the deceased was not a practising Christian.  The passages from the Bible have been anything but comforting for the majority of non-religious people in the congregation.  At my grandfather’s funeral, a dreadful passage from Revelations was read out.  At my grandmother’s funeral, the vicar referred to her as ‘Kay’ throughout – her name was Kathleen!  …We cannot all have a handsome Victorian Gothic church and Harold Pinter reading a poem.  But we can choose a fitting farewell whether religious or not.

She replied:

…Each to her own, I guess, as far as funerals go.  I think it’s very hard at the last moment, in the middle of grief, to make decisions, and if no one has taken them before, then convention is good to fall back on. I think the words of the prayer book are very beautiful, and give me a sense of connection with the past and other funerals, but I entirely take your point.

With best wishes

Minette Marrin

Although I was impressed that she had taken the trouble to reply, I was still annoyed.  However, three years later, I look back at my pre-celebrant self and smile.  I am annoyed no longer.  If an atheist wants a traditional Anglican service in his village church, why not?  If a Roman Catholic wants to be cremated and asks me, an atheist celebrant, to conduct the service, why not?

And thank you Minette for replying!  In many years to come, may you have the send-off you have asked for.

Death Cafe

27 September 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, Death; Good death

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 to see it take flight.

Jayd Kent

I attended something called a ‘Death Cafe’ today. 

I was terrified at the concept of sitting in a room, with a random group of people I had never met, to talk about the one thing that terrifies me more than anything in the world – DEATH. I had been worrying about it quietly all week. 

A little background before I tell you of my experience – 
I have always had an innate fear (and nobody really knows this) of dying. I have ‘visions’ every day, sometimes multiple ones in any given day, of my own death. They are often violent and abrupt, and I keep this to myself for fear of being judged a madman – so now I am coming out. I have had them for years, the first one I recall when I was only 13 in a Graphics Class at School – of a man breaking in and stabbing me. They are often horrific accidents where I witness my own death, and sometimes take me out of ‘real space’ for a few moments, to which I then return and try and sweep it under the carpet. In times of stress they worsen and become more frequent, and when I’m happy and life is plentiful they become less so. But they are ALWAYS there. Constantly reminding me of my mortality and fucking with my head.

So, I had a wonderful whipping and sensory session with my good friend Faerie one time recently, and we were talking about my persistent coughing, to which he thought it could be a nervous cough due to underlying anxiety issues. When he asked me if I had any I could think of, I took a leap of faith and told him about my ‘visions’, and he told me about the ‘Death Cafe’.

I spoke to a delightful man via email who had organised it, and he reassured me that I had nothing to be scared of, and gave me the details of the venue. It was in somebodys house this time, being the first one of its kind in the UK, with a hope of getting a venue in future. The offer of tea and cake was there too, which made it hard to refuse. I decided I would go, although I was still terrified of what would come out that day.

Upon nearly getting lost on the way there, I came across a beautiful road tucked down the side of Hackney. It was lovely sunny and warm, so I had enjoyed the cycle there from mine – and decided it was a gorgeous day to talk about death in this contrast in the weather.

I was welcomed by the host, and we all introduced ourselves. Everybody seemed very outgoing and friendly, which comforted me, as well as the fact one of my friends was there – the very same close friend who had suggested I go in the first place. God, I needed that hug when I saw him. 

So, we were ushered into a vintage dining room with wooden floorboards, to a wonderfully presented table with plates and such laid out. Then, the conversation began. Before I even had time to let it sink in, I had started to well up. That’s what’s so bizarre about my relationship with death – I’m so scared of it, I can’t even think about it without being reduced to tears, so sitting here with all these people openly chatting about their past experiences with it made me instantly emotional. It’s not something I have ever been open about before either – something came up in discussion about how our British Society has quite a stiff upper lip regarding this subject, and talking about it upsets others so we should just shut up. 

There were times where I felt like I was going to walk out before it was even my turn to speak.

Then it came to my turn – and why I was here. I told the group of 7 or so about my ‘visions’ – the moment I had done, I broke down. It felt awful, and I carried on talking through my tears, telling of not wanting sympathy because it was something I couldnt control, and warned of possible further outbursts later on in the session – my coping mechanism of trying to declare my problems are tiny in comparison. But this was a place where people questioned me instead of making me feel like I couldnt talk about it, they were drawing it out of me instead- bringing more of the food for thought to the table. I learned ALOT about myself, and here are some of the key points, which could be life changing to me.

Q.) How do I deal with scary death-like situations in real life?
A.) I take control, and deal with them head on. Like when Fiona (my mother) got liver cancer, and I held everyone together and became the driving force the day she had her liver transplant, or the time my house caught fire and nearly killed me and my gf when we were 19 and I just woke up and sorted it out and put the fire out, without thinking about it.

Q.) Do I have any phobias?
A.) Yes, I have a phobia of shock tactics on TV and in real life.
(To which somebody pointed out my phobia sounds the same as my visions, and perhaps it’s connected to my phobia of shock rather than my fear of death?)

These two revelations on their own were INCREDIBLY helpful, and I have got more from this one session talking to some amazing people, than I would have ever got out of say, a counselling session.

At the end of the session, we changed the subject to what we said we had achieved in life, what our obstacles were – this was kind of intended to be said on our deathbed so to speak.

It was so freeing to tell a group of strangers my life story, my achievements, hear theirs, and all share praise and thanks. We were then asked to place all the obstacles into an envelope, along with some of the fears of death we had written on pieces of card earlier, and they were ritually burned in a ceremony accompanied by some beautiful chanting melodies. We watched everything burn in that fireplace in silence, until there was nothing left. I cried quietly to myself, hoping nobody had noticed. I felt such a symbolic sense of relief watching those 15 years of fear go up in flames.

And then I ate cake afterwards, with a cup of tea to ground myself.

I can’t tell you how much this has helped me, and I feel compelled to sit here on my computer the moment I have cycled home and write down the whole experience, so I will never forget it, and never forget what those kind people have said, and try to not forget their faces on a day that will sit with me for years to come.

Perhaps the memorable day that I changed, and started on my path to ‘letting go’.

Faerie can be reached at his website
www.londonfaerie.co.uk

and The Death Cafe can be found at
www.deathcafe.com