Author: Charles

Endgame

9 December 2010
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death, funeral plans, Plan your own funeral, pre-need plans, Secular approaches to death

Interesting, isn’t it, how myopically self-absorbed people become when glancing forward to their demise. “Stick me in a binbag and put me out with the rubbish,” they say, men mostly. It’s right up there now in the top ten death clichés alongside “He’s gone to a better place,” “It’s only a shell,” and “She will be missed” – that passive verb really bugs me. (Do people really say to the parents of a dead child “You can always have another one”?)

Ask people who want to be bagged and binned if that would be good enough for their closest family members and the tune changes bigtime. But it doesn’t change the way they feel about themselves. “Nope, stick me in a binbag,” they conclude with ne’er a thought for the feelings of those charged with the bagging and binning.

Some of these people have made wills. It’s not as if they’ve completely suspended all consideration for others. And you can see why they might feel this way. It’s an existential chess move. Reaper G negates you: you negate him. Neat. Where grave thy victory?

Except that it’s not actually a plan, it’s just braggadocio. Hot air.

You could argue that we’ve become so individualistic, so narcissistic, that we have no interest in making plans for any party we shan’t be able to attend, but I think that’s wide of the mark.

The point is that this zero sum approach to corpse disposal is stupidly unhelpful. This is something you can only plan in collaboration with, and in deference to, those closest to you because, dammit, they’re the ones who are going to be lumbered with your deadweight. If ever there’s an event which requires us urgently and sensitively to give precedence to the feelings of others, this is it.

Why do our funeral plan designers not stress this? Well, it would complicate things, wouldn’t it? It would mean that people would have to talk about it, which they wouldn’t, the plan would never get written, nor (here’s the point) the accompanying cheque.

Over in the US, where they’re ahead of us in funeral trends, Funeralwise.com, a funeral planning website, has just published a survey which reveals that a startling 31 per cent of Americans don’t want a funeral (a figure that rises to 37 per cent for the over 75s). Bad news for undertakers, perhaps. Far worse news for families. As Funeralwise.com co-founder Larry Anspach rightly points out: “At the very least, families need to discuss their funeral preferences. Its okay to not want a funeral, but have you considered the impact on family and friends?”

See the full results of the Funeralwise.com survey here.

Second hand truth

8 December 2010
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: celebrants

“God, this is awful,” I mutter under my breath to my cousin who is sitting beside me on the pew at the front of the chapel. The funeral celebrant, who had never met my mother, is reading the eulogy. On top of everything else, she has a monotonous voice and is droning on about someone I do not recognize, certainly not my mother.

So begins a blog by psychologist Jane Christmas.

My mother’s personality was so complex and her life so sad, and my sister and I had barely taken a breath to start thinking about what it meant to have lost her. The celebrant suggested we could tell her about my mother’s life and she would write it, so we agreed. It was a mistake. We should have written it and at least presented my mother accurately at her own funeral.

Read the whole post here.

Chirpy chirpy tweet tweet

8 December 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: Uncategorised

I’ve taken to twittering. Not like a duck to water, you understand; you either get it or you don’t and I’m not sure that I do, so I’m not waving but bobbing. You follow someone doing something funereal and potentially interesting and chances are you get a torrent of repetitious, self-serving chimp-jabber. So having bobbed for a while I have now unfollowed not only the bores but also the glutinously mawkish. Most of them. Who wants to listen to people talking about themselves the whole time?

There’s potential in the twittersphere for a community of thanatophiles who inform and delight each other with news and views to flock together, so I’ll carry on chirping for a while and see how it goes. Apart from anything else it’s a good place to share news items that are too small to blog about.

Here, for example, are some of my yesterday’s tweets:

Charles Cowling
GoodFunerals Charles Cowling
Feed me up before I go-go. I’m never sure about the ethics of this sort of thing: http://bit.ly/hegjda
Charles Cowling
GoodFunerals Charles Cowling
Good piece on wonderfully mad William Price, father of cremation. His last words? Give me champagne! http://bit.ly/dToGjw
Charles Cowling
GoodFunerals Charles Cowling
John Hicklenton died at Dignitas. Amongst his final words: “MS you’ve met someone you shouldn’t have f***** with”.http://bit.ly/gjFCpH
Charles Cowling
GoodFunerals Charles Cowling
Funeral: A traditional grieving ceremony in which the family of the deceased mourns the loss of a $5,000 casket. http://bit.ly/e9uIcA
Charles Cowling
GoodFunerals Charles Cowling
I see Funeralcare’s offering £18K for a degree holding marketing person. Jayz, you’d have to be desperate. Tossers.http://bit.ly/gl6ZnK
Charles Cowling
GoodFunerals Charles Cowling
Anti-Westboro vet on stalking charge has his legs removed:http://bit.ly/eizihC
Charles Cowling
GoodFunerals Charles Cowling
“Leave the ‘big chains’ behind and find a smaller, family-owned service.” Got to be the best advice every time. http://bit.ly/dGQ1rk
There’s a fine line and a big difference between activity and distraction. I’ve yet to convince myself that twittering amounts to activity. You think? You tweet?

If music be the food of grief

7 December 2010
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: funeral music

I’m doing a funeral next Monday. I didn’t know one of the songs they want, so I when I got back from seeing them I called up my faithful friend Spotify and played it through to get acquainted. And to get the running time, of course.

As the song began to play, the written words I had worked so hard to assemble shrunk into a feeble huddle. The power of music is great. Even to an unmusical person like me.

Like many celebrants, I can no longer listen to songs that were played at particularly sad funerals.

I reflected on this at the weekend when out motoring with the missus. Her in-car wireless was set to Smooth or R2 or something like that (all the presets on mine are tuned to R4), when Whitney Houston came on singing I Will Always Love You. I gently turned it down for the duration.

The lyric was completely unsuited to the sentiment that the wife of the man who had died wanted to express – a common problem with funeral songs. It didn’t matter at all. All that mattered was that refrain: I will always love you. And it tore at our hearts as we sat and listened. Even mine. How much greater was the effect on those who experience music in the fullness of its power?

And I wondered, as I tried to dismiss the memory of Whitney from my ear, whether this isn’t something people need to think about – that there’s a difference between a song which is cathartic and one which is emotionally inflammatory.

Or is there?

Give me champagne!

7 December 2010
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: cremation

William Price on his deathbed

Good piece here on William Price, the father of cremation. If ever there was a more colourful life… The title of this post quotes his last words

Bloggledegook

6 December 2010
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Bloggledegook

Hiring a funeral service director to deal with all the arrangements for the deceased is a sensible idea. Not only is it affordable but it could take away some of the mental stress that comes with coping with the deceased. The garments, shoes, sock as well as the type of studs to use may seem all pretty easy to pick if you are dressing a living and breathing person but your composure goes to crap when you are already facing your dead loved one for the first time.

Source

Famous last moments

6 December 2010
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, dying, End-of-life issues, medical interventions in dying

Here is a minuscule excerpt from a wonderful, sonorous account of the death of ex-President Ulysses S Grant. It’s not what we get any more, is it, the last deathbed moments of celebs and justifiably famous people? How, when we think of it, we wish we did. Public figures die so much more privately in an age when information has never been more freely available.

On a personal note, if I am ever engaged as a celebrant I always try to elicit an account of the last days and hours. People appreciate the opportunity to talk about it – it’s cathartic. And it establishes an intimacy which makes it much easier to gather information. When a grieving person has talked about the death they can talk about anything. Top tip.

All eyes were intent on the General. His breathing had become soft, though quick. A shade of pallor crept slowly but perceptibly over his features. His bared throat quivered with the quickened breath. The outer air, gently moving, swayed the curtains at an east window. Into the crevice crept a white ray from the sun. It reached across the room like a rod and lighted a picture of Lincoln over the deathbed. The sun did not touch the companion picture, which was of the General. A group of watchers in a shaded room, with only this quivering shaft of pure light, the gaze of all turned on the pillowed occupant of the bed, all knowing that the end had come, and thankful, knowing it, that no sign of pain attended it — this was the simple setting of the scene.

The General made no motion. Only the fluttering throat, white as his sick robe, showed that life remained. The face was one of peace. There was no trace of present suffering. The moments passed in silence. Mrs. Grant still held the General’s hand. The Colonel still stroked his brow.

The light on the portrait of Lincoln was slowly sinking. Presently the General opened his eyes and glanced about him, looking into the faces of all. The glance lingered as it met the tender gaze of his companion. A startled, wavering motion at the throat, a few quiet gasps, a sigh, and the appearance of dropping into a gentle sleep followed. The eyes of affection were still upon him. He lay without a motion. At that instant the window curtain swayed back in place, shutting out the sunbeam.

“At last,” said Dr. Shrady, in a whisper.

“It is all over,” sighed Dr. Douglas.

Much much more here. A darn good 20 mins reading.

Life is like…

5 December 2010
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Humour

“Life is like a movie; no one ever wants to walk out in the middle of a movie. But in the end we all do that.”

More quotes, please, beginning Life is like…  and also getting  to the poignant truth, as the quote above does.

C’mon, kickstart that brain! Keep Herr Dr Alzheimer from the door!

Somewhere between all and nothing

2 December 2010
Charles
7 Comments
Categories: funeral directors, home funerals

An email arrives – an enquiry. Can we transport the body ourselves? Do we have to use an undertaker? The enquirer is not limbering up for a home-arranged funeral some time in the imminent future. No, the death has already happened. The undertaker’s men came to take the body away. Their spooky lugubriousness horrified my enquirer. Now she wants her mother back and ne’er another dismalist anywhere near her.

There are a great many undertakers who do removals a lot better than this. I was talking to Darren Lloyd of AJ Lloyd, Coventry, recently, and he told me how his firm does it. Exemplary to the very last detail (which I won’t reveal in case it’s a trade secret). And when it comes to a removal from a nursing home he will not countenance using a service door at the rear. No, “They came in through the front and they go out through the front.” I was tempted to offer him a high five, but I don’t know him well enough. I offered a restrained whoop instead.

Over in the United States there’s a gulf opening up between the funeral directors and the growing number of home funeral consultants. Over there you need a licence to operate as a funeral director so the consultants have to be certain that they don’t trespass on FD territory. Families don’t need a licence to do it themselves in most states, though.

In the UK the common perception is that you choose your polarity: all, or nothing. You outsource the whole shebang, turn up on the day and do what you’re told. Or you do it all yourself, every last thing, displaying a resourcefulness beyond the power of 99.9 per cent of the population – which is why they say of home funerals that they will never take off.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. Where Muslim and other faith communities are concerned, it isn’t. And the point is that while there are some who want the all package and some the nothing package, there are lots and lots who’d rather have something in between.

US funeral directors resist any erosion of the fully-serviced funeral. They have a lot to lose because their funerals are very expensive and an increasing number of Americans don’t want to stump up that much. Which is why there is an increasing number of home funeral consultants offering an alternative.

There are funeral directors in the UK (not many) who offer and encourage participation. But there are none, so far as I know, who offer a home funeral option on the model of that offered by home funeral consultants in the US.

Here’s an example. It is from the website of Peg Lorenz in Massachusetts:

What Does a Home Funeral Guide Do?

Pre-planning — We meet and explore options for how the family would like the process to unfold. Having a plan in place can provide the security of knowing that your wishes will be honored. This allows the family to focus on being with the loved one.

We can advocate for your needs and work in conjunction with a funeral director if you choose to work with a funeral home.

After death — We can advise and support the family with:

–       Washing and dressing the body

–       Preparing the body for a stay at home

–       Creating a peaceful atmosphere for visitors

–       Making necessary arrangements for transport and burial or cremation

–       Completing necessary paperwork such as the death certificate and other documents

You need not be alone at this time.

Is this really so radical and alternative? Is there any reason why a UK funeral director cannot offer this service as part of a range of services? I’d have thought that any who was to do so would establish a significant commercial advantage over his/her competitors and, more important, offer funeral consumers what they want.

The more that people can engage with the care and farewelling of their dead, the greater the emotional value of the experience – this much we know. Which is not to say that families should be urged to do what they feel they can’t. But their readiness should be carefully explored. Choice isn’t about what colour box you want, nor personalisation about dead people’s playlists. It’s not about the what, it’s about the how.

It is too late for my enquirer to identify where on the continuum from all to nothing she would have expressed a preference to be. The next few days are going to be terribly gruelling. And empowering. It’s a shame she’s come to see the funeral industry as a place where she can’t find the help she wants.

Check out Peg Lorenz’s website here

It takes two taboos

1 December 2010
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: Art and death, sex and death

The connection between sex and death is well known. If you want to muse on it further, there’s a pretty good article in the Encyclopaedia of Death and Dying. If you don’t, please don’t read the rest of this post. It’s dirty, you’ll think. Offensive. Come back tomorrow.

Which brings us, with a single bound, to bookplates. Why is it that so many bookplates incorporate a memento mori plus, often, an erotic bonus? I think I knew the answer once but, if memory serves, I have forgotten. Perhaps you can shed some light?

Over at the A Journey Round My Skull blog there are three fine collections of bookplates featuring death and, in some cases, sexy flesh. You can find them here.

From there it’s but a short hop to the Morbid Anatomy blog, where you can contemplate the fatal aftermath of too much masturbation. Here.