Shouldering responsibility
You will have your own feelings about a coffin being carried on shoulders of undertakers. It unsettles me. I don’t like to see those big men in black macs in such a close relationship with the body. It wouldn’t do for any of mine. I don’t want men I’ve never met carrying anyone of mine. […]
Music: consolation for life
If you didn’t catch the BBC Radio 4 programme Soul Music last week, you can still hear it on Listen Again. It’s worth it. Soul Music is a long-running series which just seems to get better and better. The format is simple: snippets of interviews with all sorts of people interwoven with the chosen piece […]
Who needs ’em?
In their new book, Final Rights (they gave me a sneak preview), Joshua Slocum, Executive Director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, and Lisa Carlson, Executive Director of the Funeral Ethics Organisation, will publish state by state tables demonstrating how many excess funeral directors there are in the US. They base their calculation on the head […]
Whose job is it anyway?
Prison Terminal
Prison Terminal is a moving cinema verité documentary that breaks through the walls of one of America’s oldest maximum security prisons to tell the story of the final months in the life of a terminally ill prisoner and the trained hospice volunteers—they themselves prisoners—who care for him. The film draws from footage shot over a […]
Roundup
Here’s a roundup of news stories I’ve tweeted in the last fortnight. It looks rather a lot — but I try never to fob you off with quantity at the expense of quality. I hate having my own time wasted, so I try hard not to waste yours. Take your pick and enjoy — or […]
Grief memoirs
There’s been some interesting discussion of grief over at the New York Times. Ruth Davis Konigsberg, the person who demolished the 5 stages of grief model (derived from Kubler Ross), has this to say: In the past decade, social scientists with unprecedented access to large groups of widows and widowers have learned that, as individual […]
La Santa Muerte
In Mexico there is a cult that is rapidly growing–the cult of Saint Death. This female grim reaper, considered a saint by followers but Satanic by the Catholic Church, is worshipped by people whose lives are filled with danger and/or violence–criminals, gang members, transvestites, sick people, drug addicts, and families living in rough neighborhoods. Eva […]
They want my reply. What should I say?
Good morning, I have been admiring your website and would like to enquire about the possibility of having Staysure Prepaid funeral plans listed on your website. Staysure.co.uk established in 2004, achieved 8th position in the recently published Sunday Times Fastrack 100 list. Staysure has teamed up with Dignity to offer the Guaranteed Funeral Plan to […]
Laughing it off
I’m not supposed to be here (see previous post) but I can’t resist abandoning packing my water wings for a moment in order to give vent to what may or may not be justified crossness. Funerals have, by many people who ought to know better, been subjected to a reductio ad absurdum: three songs and […]
