Author: Charles

Beyond wordless

3 June 2013
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death

David Aaronovitch tells a tale in today’s Times which seems to speak volumes about, uh, attitudes to death, or families, or Britishness or… something, such that I thought I must share it with you. The background is that the Aaronovich family dog, a Kerry Blue, has been diagnosed with cancer and will die soon. 

When the vet told us, my wife Sarah and I were upset enough on our own account. But Sarah was particularly worried about how the children would take it. Exams were coming; there were other problems to be dealt with. Perhaps we should put off telling them until the moment was more propitious.

Then, as we dithered, a friend who lives in Lincolnshire phoned and told us about her experience. She has four young children, and they had grown together, played together, yapped together with their dog, a schnauzer called Dennis. Dennis was afflicted by illness rather more suddenly order cialis with paypal than Ruby and a schoolday visit to the vet established that it was probably best for the poor animal to be ushered in the next world within the week.

Our friend could not bring herself to tell the children who she knew would be badly affected by the news. So she didn’t let on, which meant that on the day of execution she had done nothing to prepare her little ones. They came home from school to the dogless house and, amazingly, didn’t seem to notice. So our friend put off the dreaded moment again.

Tuesday came and went, then Wednesday and she began to wonder. After a week in which not one of the children had so much as mentioned the dog once, it occurred to their mother that she might have overestimated the trauma of Dennis’s demise. To this day she hasn’t said anything and neither have her children.

Source

Funeralcare for sale?

3 June 2013
Charles
16 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare

The capital shortfall at the Co-operative Bank is estimated to be somewhere between £1–1.8 billion. This debt has been downgraded by Moody’s to junk status. The Co-op is going to have to sell assets in order to pay it off. 

Here’s the news for Funeralworld. Today’s Daily Telegraph speculates as follows: 

Further asset disposals are under review. The bank has already announced the sale of its life insurance business and the parent Co-op Group may be asked to sanction the disposal of other assets that range from funeral parlours to farmland.

Things could get interesting. 

Thinking the unsinkable

3 June 2013
Charles
21 Comments
Categories: cremation, direct cremation, funeral customs, funeral directors, funeral trends

In October 2008, in a piece about direct cremation, I wrote this: In the UK we are culturally conditioned to believe that a funeral for a body is indispensable. Could that change? In July 2009 I wrote: I never thought [direct cremation] would jump the Atlantic, but it has. We now have our first direct cremation service over here and it’s busy. Simplicity Cremations*, it’s called.

I seem not to have been wholly persuaded, however, for in March 2010 I wrote: It seems unthinkable that the practice of direct cremation … could land on our shores. In May 2010, in response to a very valuable analysis by Nick Gandon, Jonathan, a sagacious and valued commenter on this blog, wrote: Funeral directors aren’t set up to cater for direct cremation because the demand is almost nil. 

Seems like ancient history now.

The growth of direct cremation marks a cultural shift that, so far as I know, has gone unremarked by the British media. So far as the media is concerned, direct cremation doesn’t mark a cultural shift at all, it’s simply a branch of the cheaper funerals market, and we all want cheaper funerals, don’t we? The Dismal Trade seems mostly to share this analysis. Direct cremation is for poor people who can’t afford a full fig funeral, for a few well-off middle class people who want a ‘fuss-free’ funeral, and for the I’m-not-worth-it brigade who don’t reckon they’re worth funeralling anyway. It’s a niche market. 

So far as we can tell from their responses, funeral directors experience the impact of direct cremation as a commercial, not a cultural phenomenon, and certainly not as an existential threat. Most people still want a trad funeral, but direct cremation has affected the trad funerals market by making stripped-down respectable.  It has empowered funeral shoppers to say no to stuff they don’t actually really want. The days of one limo or two have been succeeded by one limo or none — oh, and no flowers, either, thanks. We are witnessing a watering down of the Big Black Funeral. How much more dilution can it take? 

Culturally, until the last five years or so, we supposed there to be a crucial, indispensable emotional and spiritual value in holding a funeral in the presence of a dead body.  Now, we’re not so sure. A combination of all manner of factors may be responsible, longevity in particular — when death is merely the postscript to a long and beastly illness, there doesn’t seem to be much more grief work to do. On the other hand, the deaths of young people remain not just as momentous as ever, but more so. 

There is, arguably, a perfectly good rationale for direct cremation. Reducing a body to ‘ash’ and rendering it, thereby, portable, durable and divisible, is a very effective way of preparing it for a funeral. There is remarkably little understanding of this among funeral directors; most of them simply do not get it, probably because they scent no commercial opportunity. 

So here are the big questions:

Is it preferable, in the interest of emotional and spiritual health, to hold a funeral in the presence of a dead body? Or do ashes actually serve perfectly well?

Biggest question of all: 

  • Is it perilous to your emotional health not to hold a funeral at all? After all, we get to carry on without the benefit of a formal ceremony or other ritual observance after near-bereavement experiences like the breakdown of a relationship, or redundancy, or a child leaving home. We resolve those privately. 

It seems extraordinary that the funeral industry has mounted no concerted defence of the funeral. Nor, so far as I know, have any academics responded to what’s going on and debated the question: Is your funeral really necessary? 

Because if pragmatic Brits cotton on to the idea that a funeral serves no purpose, does them absolutely no good at at all, is all just a lot of hollow show and hot air, they’ll be only too pleased to say goodbye to a tradition they never had much time for anyway. 

And that’ll be curtains for an industry thought to be unsinkable. 

*Simplicity Cremations is now Simplicita Cremations. I’ll leave it to Nick to explain why.

Undertakers overcharge, situation normal

1 June 2013
Charles
20 Comments
Categories: funeral cost

You may or not have been up early enough to catch the ITV Daybreak piece on funerals on Thursday morning. The GFG media monitoring team wasn’t. It was at the seaside. Had it not been for a call from Rosie at the Natural Death Centre we would have missed it altogether.

Impelled by a strong sense of duty, and to the accompaniment of howls of impatience — you have to wade through acres of vapid adverts to get to it — we have now witnessed the report for ourselves. 

We learned nothing new. The tone was hostile and entirely price-focussed. ITV had commissioned a poll and discovered that 1 in 3 of us feels pressurised into spending more than we want; 42 per cent of us feel we were overcharged; 1 person in 3 doesn’t understand the costs; and 1 person in 7 isn’t happy with the service. It all depends how you word the questions, doesn’t it?

ITV requested quotes from 120 funeral homes around the country for a simple funeral. Something like £2000 separated the cheapest from the dearest. 

A woman seeking direct cremation was told by one funeral director “We don’t do that” and failed to recommend someone who would. Her google-savvy daughter, after “weeks”on the internet, eventually sourced Poppy Mardall, whom she praised to the skies. How she missed all the other direct cremationists out there is a mystery. 

Dominic Maguire, for the NAFD, countered criticism by reminding us that a third or more of the cost of a funeral is disbursements and only 80 people complained last year. 

There was good advice about asking a friend to do the ‘project management’. We were told that we could do it all ourselves, but we were given no guidance on the small matter of how to look after a dead body. 

The report did not tell us that there are lots and lots of good guys in the industry; seek and you shall find. It was, arguably, an unhelpful omission. 

You can catch the report on the ITV Player here. Starts at 7.42. 

Tea and Sympathy

31 May 2013
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: music

One of the most wonderful things about being a celebrant is being introduced to music and artists we’ve never heard before.

Tea and Sympathy by Janis Ian

I don’t want to ride the milk train anymore
I’ll go to bed at nine and waken with the dawn
And lunch at half past noon and dinner prompt at five
The comfort of a few old friends long past their prime

Pass the tea and sympathy for the good old days long gone
We’ll drink a toast to those who most believe in what they’ve won
It’s a long, long time ’til morning plays wasted on the dawn
And I’ll not write another line, for my true love is gone

When the guests have gone, I’ll tidy up the rooms
And turn the covers down, and gazing at the moon
Will pray to go quite mad and live in long ago
When you and I were one, so very long ago

Pass the tea and sympathy for the good old days long gone
We’ll drink a toast to those who most believe in what they’ve won
It’s a long, long time ’til morning plays wasted on the dawn
And I’ll not write another line, for my true love is gone

When I have no dreams to give you anymore
I’ll light a blazing fire and wait within the door
And throw my life away, “I wonder why?” they all will say
And now I lay me down to sleep, forever and a day

Pass the tea and sympathy, for the good old days are dead
Let’s drink a toast to those who best survived the life they’ve led
It’s a long, long time ’til morning, so build your fires high
Now I lay me down to sleep, forever by your side

Hat tip to Kitty

Bloggledegook

28 May 2013
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: Bloggledegook

Around 200 dedicated normal funeral sites have been created in the British, and the industry in the British isles includes a program code of training used through The Organization of Natural Funeral Coffee grounds. Ha Ken Gulf, professional cemetery via 1961-2006, and life-long amateur naturalist, launched wood land funeral as a principle to the City of Carlisle in The united kingdom in Michael went bonkers, leading with a “Living Churchyard” project which returned owls, voles, and some other animals to the town graveyard through concluding mowing and trimming and introducing wild flowers and look for food. West’s successes include: Instrumental in building the Connection of Organic Funeral Grounds; produced the Charter for the Bereaved and the Hire for the Surviving; Given MBE by simply HRH Royal prince Charles in 2004 for services to funeral and cremation; expert to Britian’s Parliament on managing pandemics and making environmental funeral services; existing determine for annual British normal funeral opposition; older specialized expert for the Sustainable Graveyard Management Party.

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When death is no longer the worst thing that can happen to you

27 May 2013
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Assisted dying, Assisted suicide, Attitudes to death, End-of-life issues, euthanasia, Longevity

It’s not the worthy efforts of the members of the Dying Matters coalition that have raised awareness of the need to talk about death and dying. What’s actually got more and more of us talking is our personal experiences of the difficult and protracted end-of-life suffering of members of our families. Alongside twenty-first century death agony, extinction is the least we have to fear. Bring it on, goes up the cry, as, just this week, the Falconer Assisted Dying Bill passed its first reading in the House of Lords, Vermont became the fourth state in the USA to legislate for assisted suicide (let’s call it what it is, shall we, Charlie?) and in liberal (if that’s the right word) Switzerland an 80 year old woman in perfectly good health appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to be allowed to go now rather than get any older. She’s had enough, thanks. 

Live issues in this debate are: 1) what constitutes suffering; 2) the right of the state to limit personal autonomy and an individual’s right to self-determination; 3) the duty of doctors to write a prescription for those who ask for a chemical exit; and 4) the protection of those going through a depressive patch or who are susceptible to duress from predatory relatives, etc.

Over time, of course, this is going to reconfigure attitudes to funerals. 

In the context of all this, I was struck by the following letter in last Sunday’s Sunday Times:  

It isn’t just dementia that thwarts our plans. I also dread the disease that robbed me of my mother, and the thought of my daughter changing my nappies and enduring tyrannical rages  and repeated conversations fills me with dismay.

So strong are my feelings that five years ago I wrote a detailed advance directive,  had it witnessed, shared it with my family and lodged a copy with my GP. I take little comfort from this as it  appears that some people — who do not know me but  have some religious or ethical opinion — are insisting they have more rights over my  body than me.

Why should the limited resources of this tiny planet be used on my dribbling, deranged shell when I’ve requested otherwise?

Sue Parkes, Halesowen, West Midlands

Funeral attendance in a transient, modern world

24 May 2013
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: funeral

 Posted by Richard Rawlinson (who is 100 today)

The love between husband and wife or parent and child is natural, bred into us over millions of years. Not so friendship, apparently. Until farms and villages started to appear around 35,000 years ago, people allegedly refused to talk to each other, networks of friends being anathema. 

Fast forward to the 21st century when prosperity and technology allow plenty of leisure time, when people cross the globe for education and employment, when social media allows friendships to form across countries and continents. 

But how many of us find we’re still so busy as to neglect all but a handful of our closest friends, that our A-Z list of names in our mobile is unsustainable? How many of us move jobs or homes, or change partners, and find former friends drop off the radar? Those friendships didn’t seem fragile at the time. 

And how has modern life affected funeral attendance? Do we go to more funerals because we know more people, even if some of them are not particularly close? Was friendship so much deeper in the days when more people lived in the same close-knit community all their lives, or is this a view of the past through rose-tinted spectacles? 

My hunch is that mobility and greater leisure time enable more meaningful friendships than in the past, but, as we no longer necessarily have intimate knowledge of many of our wider circle’s physical and internal lives, perhaps some friendships are less intense, less ‘familial’. 

And how has transient modern life affected the love between parent and child, and, therefore, family funerals? Despite the bonds of blood, I’m sure it was ever thus that parents and children can irritate each other, and even more so when being constantly in each other’s vicinity.

Death somehow strengthens bonds, whether or not we fully appreciated family in life. In our busy lives, we might live far from home, and fail in our duty of visits and phone calls. Some feel regret and guilt when their neglected parents die.

It’s spring, the season of cleansing and renewal. Make amends with a long lost friend. Show your Mum and Dad how you love them. Even make peace with a blog sparring partner. 

Footnote: Social media relationships are especially fickle. Strangers bond in agreement but, distanced by technology, also sneer more readily in disagreement. Mutual respect can end at the press of a ‘Send’ button, and a war of words can escalate at a pace it rarely would at a ‘real’ social gathering. Like Hyde Park Corner on a global scale, the internet liberates the ‘soap-boxer’ and heckler in us. I should know: this is my 100th blog here! Oh, the pain and pleasure of being a square peg in a round hole.

 

What taught Chuck about death?

23 May 2013
Charles
No comments
Categories: Arranging a funeral, Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death, coffins, End-of-life issues, home funerals

We like Chuck Lakin at the GFG. We’ve blogged about him here and here. Here’s his reply to the question ‘When did you begin learning about death?’

The precipitating incident was the death of my own father. This was in 1979 and he was home for the last six week of his life, and I’m glad to say I was there for the last month of that. And he was in his own bed with his wife and four kids touching him. It has been a very personal experience up until that point. And I didn’t know it before that, but I knew I wanted to be a part of whatever happened next. But I didn’t know what I could do. So, we called a funeral director. And he did what I’m sure he thought we wanted him to do, which was arrive promptly and zip dad in a body bag and take him away and mail us a box of ashes four days later. And that disconnect was very important to me. And it was almost 20 years later that I found the information that I needed that told me what I could have done at the point. I started giving people the information that they needed to have if they wanted the experience that I wanted to have when my father died. It has evolved past that. I started out just talking about home funerals. Now, I’m big on planning and making choices. It’s about thinking about it and making sure it is written down and you’ve had a conversation with the family. If you haven’t transmitted the information about what you’d like to have happen to your body to anybody, those people are going to have to make a lot of potentially expensive or contentious decisions. It’s a tragedy and it’s very stressful for everybody. If you’ve made the plans ahead of time, it can be a spiritual time. It can give them a chance to grieve.

Full interview here. 

An intimate and loving burial

22 May 2013
Charles
17 Comments
Categories: DIY funeral, natural burial

When Alex Dudley-Smith’s mother died this month, she set about organising a fitting sendoff for her. Here is her account of what she did. 

The unexpected death of my mother meant we were not prepared in any way for the organisation and costs of a funeral.

This is the first time I’ve been responsible for sorting out a funeral and was anxious as I didn’t know where to start. But I did know what mum wanted, as we had often spoken of what to do with her body when she eventually died.

My mum died in hospital, so her body was held in the hospital morgue and I wanted to remove her body from there as quickly as possible and bury it. So I immediately started researching on the internet to see what was the usual way of doing a burial with the funeral directors, burial sites and coffins. It was expensive and, for me, it lacked something which at the time I could not put my finger on. I then started to look at natural burial sites, as mum had often spoken about wanting her body to be returned to the earth just as she had come into the world, completely naked!

Fortunately I found Natural Burial Grounds which showed photos of various sites in our area and there was one that immediately resonated with me and a burial plot was immediately arranged. The gentleman who runs Natural Burial Grounds organised this with the utmost sensitivity and kindness, taking a massive weight off my shoulders.

Next thing on my list was what to put mum’s body in. She had mentioned being buried in her birthday suit, but that was too much for me and the hospital would dig their heels in, seeing it as being disrespectful to the deceased. I then came across a YouTube video of an amazing lady who did her mother’s burial herself, completely from start to finish,  collecting her mother’s body (which was wrapped in a shroud, no coffin!) from the morgue and going on a wonderful journey to the burial site, where she dug the grave herself and finally laid her mother’s body to rest. It was very inspirational and gave me the hope and focus that I could give mum’s body the intimate and loving burial she had wished for. Deciding that her body would be buried in a shroud, a beautiful American quilt with stars embroidered all over it, in remembrance of the joyful years we had living in Washington DC, and eventually laying her body to rest on a bed of roses. We did not have a minister, as we chose to do the service ourselves, each member of the family and friends playing a part.

Now the hospital had to be informed of my plans to collect mum’s body from their morgue. Usually this is done by funeral directors, but there is another way: you can do it yourself. This may sound daunting, as the idea of handling the dead body of a loved one can be strange to say the least. The truth is, it was the most natural thing to do. Having spent my whole life with my mother it seemed right to be the one to carry her body from the morgue to the burial site, rather then leaving it to a funeral director, a stranger, who had no connection with my mum during her lifetime.

I telephoned the hospital, informing them of the date and time I would be collecting mum’s body. Of course they were very unsure of what the rules and regulations are and I could understand their uncertainty, as most hospitals and doctors do not know the law on who is legally responsible for the body of a loved one. I was mum’s Power of Attorney and Executor of her will and therefore legally allowed to take her body from the morgue to the burial. If the hospital refused to release her body to me, they would be breaking the law! Wanting to make sure everything ran smoothly on the day of the collection, I did a dummy run the previous day, which was very useful in meeting the hospital staff who would be helping me with mum’s body, and essential in finding the pick-up point for the morgue. It was a first time for them, handing a body over to someone who wasn’t a funeral director, and a first time for me. On the day of the funeral, the transfer of mum’s body went quickly and smoothly, with the hospital porter remarking how good it was that family and friends were participating in such a way and that he expects to see more of this happening in the future.

Mum’s body comfortably positioned in the car and surrounded by roses, we began our journey through beautiful scenery of mountains, rivers and woodlands, finally reaching our destination where mum’s body was to be buried. The estate manager was there to greet us and had very thoughtfully built a board with straps, in order to lower mum’s body into the grave. This he made, knowing that mum’s body wasn’t in a coffin, something I hadn’t thought of! I’m so grateful for his kindness.

Everything about that day was so beautiful and I’m blessed to have had such a life enhancing opportunity. It is a day that my family, friends and I will always hold dear in our hearts and remember with joy and gratitude.

The burial ground was Cothiemuir Hill and the helpful man from the estate was Steven Clark, the grave digger.