One of the GFG directors who works as a funeral celebrant has recently experienced a bereavement.
In this blog post, she writes about unexpectedly finding herself among those who have been bereaved, but who are not in control of the proceedings.
“I think we sometimes forget that as funeral processionals we experience bereavements too, be they expected or sudden, tragic or the natural order of things. With family dynamics that may be loving or complex.
This has just happened in my family and now we were the clients. Stopped in my tracks by this sudden and shocking event, I was at a loss at what to do. People were asking me questions about what would happen next and I couldn’t remember. And being in a position where I was not in control of the arrangements with the funeral director already having been engaged, important decisions taken and having to wait to be consulted was a challenge. For my next career I may apply to work for the United Nations.
It’s given me some valuable insight into what our clients may experience, as well as some unexpected reactions of my own. I found myself wanting to protect my adult daughter from painful emotions and not tell her some of what was happening, including an instinct to advise her not to spend time with the body and finding myself being scared to do so too. And wondering if it was wrong to privately tell the dead person about themselves! (I didn’t).
I told the Minister what my job was when I introduced myself to him, something that annoys me when celebrants do that at a ceremony I’m leading. ‘Oh you’ll be holding me to a very high account then’ the Minister smiled. ‘You’re not wrong’ I thought. And neither was I honest about how long my contribution would be in case he asked me to edit it for time keeping purposes; ask me to bring my words to a close at your peril, I thought.
It made me think a lot about who the funeral is for. And of the importance of having skilled and compassionate professionals around you.
I thought about what I and my immediate family need and how we could find that, amidst having very little say in how the day of the funeral would go and in an environment of us having no faith and the other side of the family to whom it needed to be the main focus. Of how to find our own relevance and need for contemplation, especially when you have a different experience of the person to the one presented.
The skill and compassion of the Minister greatly helped, ensuring that all of us were able to feel part of the ceremony, as did keeping the words of Mohamed Omer, Board member of the Gardens of Peace Muslim Cemetery, in my mind from a recent presentation; ‘grief has no religion’.
And now life goes on. One that’s been knocked off course and changed everything. So we’ll take a deep breath, pick ourselves up, get out of our PJs, find that routine we were in before this happened, reset and move forward once more.
Whatever job we do or service we provide, being the client from time to time should be part of the job description.
