Author: Charles

Plus ça change…

2 March 2012
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: funeral directors

“It is curious that long association with the sadness of death seems to have deprived an occasional funeral director of all sense of moderation. Whether the temptation of “good business” gradually undermines his character—knowing as he does that bereaved families ask no questions—or whether his profession is merely devoid of taste, he will, if not checked, bring the most ornate and expensive casket in his establishment; he will perform every rite that his professional ingenuity for expenditure can devise; he will employ every attendant he has; he will order vehicles numerous enough for the cortège of a president; he will even, if thrown in contact with a bewildered chief-mourner, secure a pledge for the erection of an elaborate mausoleum.

Some one, therefore, who has the family’s interest at heart and knows their taste and purse, should go personally to the establishment of the undertaker, and not only select the coffin, but go carefully into the specification of all other details, so that everything necessary may be arranged for, and unnecessary items omitted.”

Emily Post on funeral directors, 1928, here.  Hat tip to Kathryn Edwards.

Thoughts of a funeralgoer

2 March 2012
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: Thoughts of a funeralgoer

Posted by Lyra Mollington

On the day of cousin Trevor’s funeral, I woke up in a cold sweat. I’d had the most awful nightmare. I dreamt that all the mourners had been instructed to wear novelty slippers – the bigger and furrier the better. If that wasn’t bad enough, there were shaven-headed monks in saffron robes at the doors of the crematorium inspecting us. I was beginning to panic – were my gorilla slippers furry enough?

As my sister Myra and I drove along the M4, I thought it best not to mention my dream. As planned, we arrived in plenty of time for a cup of coffee and a Bath bun at the garden centre next door. Never attend a funeral on an empty stomach – grumbling tummies are not what the grieving widow wishes to hear.

Nor does she wish to hear the raucous ring-tone of a mobile phone. Barbara, the lady leading the ceremony, had barely welcomed us when, ‘Who let the dogs out?’ assaulted our ears.

The last time Myra and I had seen Trevor was at his father’s funeral twelve years ago, so the eulogy was a useful way of catching up on his latest news. We had to read between the lines of course. The word ‘alcoholic’ was never mentioned. Instead, we were told that he enjoyed socialising with his friends at his local, The Full Moon.

As the ceremony continued, I realised that in my preparations for the funeral, I hadn’t even considered that this might be a sad occasion. After all, Trevor was a Jack-the-lad and a happy-go-lucky sort .

Then we were told how his wife Marjorie had barely started researching Buddhist funerals on the internet when she discovered a note. Barbara read it out:

Dear Marj,

No fuss. Keep it simple and don’t spend too much. Treat yourself to a holiday. As the curtains close, The Sound of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel. Be happy my darling.

All my love,

Trevor

P.S. “When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. When you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.” (Ancient Buddhist saying)

Trevor – wherever you are, I hope you are rejoicing.

Wrong coffin with a twist

1 March 2012
Charles
32 Comments
Categories: coffins, Dignity, funeral directors, scandals

Here’s an extraordinary thing.

A funeral director brings the wrong coffin to the crematorium. The crematorium staff spot that it’s the wrong coffin on arrival, and inform the funeral director. 

So far, so banal.

What happens next? The service goes ahead with the wrong coffin. At the conclusion thereof the coffin is not burnt but, presumably, taken home by the funeral director.

So she/he’s now got two dead people, one of whom ought to be ashes. What did she/he do next?

The Belfast Telegraph does not tell us here. The crematorium was Loughborough (Dignity plc) and the undertaker has yet to be named. 

 

 

Two to the power of… Funeral Directing

1 March 2012
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

You remember Kathryn’s post here setting out the rules of the Two Things game? Here’s how it goes:

For every subject, there are only two things you really need to know.  Everything else is the application of these two things, or just not important. 

Example: 

The Two Things about Arranging a Funeral

1. Do what needs to be done.
2. Do NOT do what doesn’t need to be done.

Ru Callender

1. The bereaved are free to arrange pretty much whatever they want for a funeral.
2. The bereaved are often too blasted by grief to know what they want.

Kathryn Edwards

Today’s challenge: 

The Two Things about Funeral Directing

Customary GFG cigar to the best entry. 

Quote of the day

1 March 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Quotes

“It is hard to have patience with people who say… ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever where to buy generic cialis forum happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn’t matter.”

CS Lewis

Crepe On The Old Cabin Door

1 March 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: music

Oh, young fellows, do take warning
While you this tale I tell
I tell it from a heart that’s sad and sore

Come and learn from me a lesson
As I have learned it well
From the crepe upon the little cabin door

Oh, I left my home and kindred
And those who loved me well
It broke my mother’s heart, the life I led

Then, from her there came a letter
To say she wished me well
Now I tell to you the pleading words I read

“I’m getting old and feeble
My hair will soon be grey
And every day I’m waiting at the door

Oh, my boy, come home to see me
Before I go away
Oh, I fear I’ll never see you anymore”

But I did not heed the warning
I’d hear it day by day
Just wasting time on women, wine and song

But this kind of sinful pleasure
Lasts only for a day
And the sorrows of repentance last so long

Then at last I journied homeward
And as I climbed the hill
I thought to see my mother’s face once more

But as I passed through the gateway
My aching heart stood still
There was crepe upon the little cabin door

Oh, young fellows, do take warning
You’ve heard this tale I tell
You’ve heard it from a heart that’s sad and sore

Come and learn from me a lesson
As I have learned it well
From the crepe upon the little cabin door

Thompson / Guernsey, sung by Vernon Dalhart, 1928

Muffle the Bell, Our Nellie’s Dying

1 March 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: Etiquette

 

Muffle the bell, our ‘Nellie’s dying, soon she’ll close her soft blue eyes;
Kiss her pale lips now sweetly parted, kiss our darling e’er she dies;
How we’ll miss her little footsteps, and her voice we loved so dear.
Kiss our sweet darling, kiss her gently, e’er the angel forms draw near.

Chorus.
Muffle the bell our Nellie’s dying, soon she’ll close her soft blue eyes;
Kiss her pale lips now sweetly parted, kiss our darling e’er she dies.

Muffle the bell, our Nellie’s dying, softly tread upon the floor,
Speak low, for fear you’ll wake our darling, soon we’ll see her nevermore;
She was all that made home happy, with her little words of love.
Listen! the angels now are calling from their home in heaven above.

Chorus.
Muffle the bell, our Nellie’s dying, soft and lower prows her breath.
Only a little moment later she’ll be called away in death;
Angel forms are hov’ring near her, soft we hear their footsteps tread;
Hush! our sweet darling breathes no longer, darling little Nellie’s dead.

 

Muffle The Bell, Our Nellie’s Dying. Words and Music by James E Stewart 1881 



                                                    

                                    
                                
            

            
        
    


                            

                                                    

                                


    
                


                                        

                                            Muffle the bell, put crèpe on the door
                                    

                        
                                        



    
                            

                

                
                                    
                        1 March 2012
                    
                            

                
                            

                

                
                                    Charles
                            

                
                            

                

                
                                                    
                                    4 Comments
                            

                
                            

                

                                    Categories: 
                
                
                    Etiquette,                    Funeral flowers,                    Grief                                    
            

                
                        
    


                        
        

        
                
                        


                                                
                                                                            

                                                                                        
 




Bouquet of Violets by Edouard Manet


 


Posted by Kathryn Edwards


 


AT no time does solemnity so possess our souls as when we stand deserted at the brink of darkness into which our loved one has gone. And the last place in the world where we would look for comfort at such a time is in the seeming artificiality of etiquette; yet it is in the moment of deepest sorrow that etiquette performs its most vital and real service. 


So begins the chapter on Funerals in Emily Posts’ 1922 guide to etiquette here. Born into a privileged American home, Emily (1872–1960) had turned to writing after the divorce that resulted from her prominent banker husband’s extra-marital affairs with chorus girls. 


The resultant industry under the Post banner continues to this day, with the 18th edition of the Etiquette book published last autumn, the ‘funerals’ chapter having morphed into ‘Loss, grieving and condolences’, and the locus of much activity to do with funerals now clearly taking place outside the home. 


But back in 1922 the list of death-related functions in the home for which etiquette had a prescription includes ‘muffling the bell’, a notion so quaint that I turned to it at once.  The practice is intended to signal to callers that the house is in mourning, so that the bell will not be rung unnecessarily nor long. 


As a rule the funeral director hangs crepe streamers on the bell; white ones for a child, black and white for a young person, or black for an older person. …


If they prefer, the family sometimes orders a florist to hang a bunch of violets or other purple flowers on black ribbon streamers, for a grown person; or white violets, white carnations—any white flower without leaves—on the black ribbon for a young woman or man; or white flowers on white gauze or ribbon for a child.   


This grace doesn’t last long, however: the instruction is that whoever is taking care of the house should remove this mourning emblem while the funeral cortege is at the cemetery.  But while it lasts, what a lovely idea. 


 




                                                    

                                    
                                
            

            
        
    


                            

                                                    

                                


    
                


                                        

                                            Man Desecrates Corpses In Teeth Heist Shock
                                    

                        
                                        



    
                            

                

                
                                    
                        29 February 2012
                    
                            

                
                            

                

                
                                    Charles
                            

                
                            

                

                
                                                    
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For readers who find our diet worthy, dull and occasionally pretentious, here’s something to gladden your eye from the New York Daily News:


A “creepy” Colorado father accused of pawning gold teeth he took from cremated remains at several funeral homes claims he did it to provide for his eight children, police said.


Police said Adrian David Kline also swiped gold crowns from corpses before they were embalmed.


 


Go get it all here. 


                                                    

                                    
                                
            

            
        
    


                            

                                                    

                                


    
                


                                        

                                            Quote of the day
                                    

                        
                                        



    
                            

                

                
                                    
                        29 February 2012
                    
                            

                
                            

                

                
                                    Charles
                            

                
                            

                

                
                                                    
                                    6 Comments
                            

                
                            

                

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“I cannot stress this enough. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being interested in mortality and death. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you are “sick” or “morbid” or “deviant.” It is patently untrue. Death is where every single one of us will end up. To feign disinterest in such a fundamental thing is denial, plain and simple. Read everything you can about buy cialis pharmacy death. Read the philosophers, read the scientists. Figure out what you (not your culture or your religion) believe happens to a body after death and what rituals make sense to you. In this case, ignorance is not bliss. With death, ignorance is fear.”


 


 


From ‘On the Fear of Death’ by  Caitlin Doughty. Read it all; it’s brilliant — here.