"I wish I'd spoken at my father's funeral"

Here is some great advice on giving eulogies from Olivia Mitchell. As she mentions, you only get one chance to do this, so don't pass it up if at all possible. A professional oration is never expected, but an honest, personal reflection can make a funeral meaningful and healing.

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I wish I’d spoken at my father’s funeral
October 26, 2008 by Olivia Mitchell
Being able to express yourself publicly at important ceremonies and celebrations - funerals, weddings, christenings and birthdays - is one of the greatest gifts.
My father died 10 years ago. I was going to speak at his funeral. But when we arrived at the church all I could see were the distinguished, CEO-looking men in the audience (my father was an international businessman). I felt intimidated and chose not to speak. That’s something I regret.
I’ll never turn down an invitation to give a eulogy again.
Don’t make the same mistake I made at my father’s funeral. If you’re given an opportunity to speak at a funeral or other family celebration, think of your regret if you don’t express yourself and your love for that person. On one side you’ll have your anxiety urging to stay quiet. On the other, you have your love for that person that that you would like to express publicly. Focus on the love, not the anxiety.

http://www.recess.ufl.edu/transcripts/2006/0223.shtml

Take the pressure offHere is some advice for taking the pressure off yourself as you prepare a eulogy or a speech for a family celebration.
1. You don’t have to provide an outline of their entire life. The best eulogies are a snapshot or series of snapshots of the person’s life. Comprehensive accounts of a person’s life are best left to written tributes and obituaries.
2. You don’t have to do a ton of research or talk to lots of other people. Give your own recollections and your own perspective about the person. In a forum thread on giving a eulogy the most repeated advice was to share your personal memories.
3. You don’t have to lie. Every person has some flaws. Don’t feel you have to avoid them. Be compassionately honest about the person - don’t idealize them. From the eulogy forum thread comes this beautifully written thought:
In the wan light of grief, annoying habits become endearing eccentricities; it feels good to honor the person who really lived, and not some idealized version that never existed.
4. You don’t have to make people laugh. Moments of levity and humour are fine, and even welcome during a funeral service. However, if humour doesn’t come naturally to you, don’t force it. A trivial detail which people can relate to is often all that is required:
The only thing I remember about my grandmother’s eulogy was the priest describing how he could always tell she was in line for the Eucharist, because he could hear the tinkling of the armful of bracelets she perpetually wore. It was such a wonderful detail that it captured so much about her — her faith, her style, her position in her church. It was a lovely detail and I remember how much we all smiled and laughed when the priest said it — a bit of joy in the midst of our grief.
5. You don’t have to get it exactly right. The exact words that you use and whether they come out right or not - is not important. This is not a business presentation. Nobody’s taking notes.
6. You don’t have to have a complicated structure. Here’s an easy formula for your eulogy or speech. Think of three qualities the person has. Talk about each quality with a short story or anecdote to illustrate each one.

-for the complete text visit http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/presentation-philosophy/funeral-speech-eulogy/

Clown Funeral

A meaningful funeral is a combination of ritual and personalization. When the loss of a loved one turns our world and lives upside down, going through the familiar rituals of our culture and faith is reassuring to us.

Photo Credit: Marshall Gorby

Participating in funeral rituals helps to reinforce the reality of the death, and reminds us that we are a part of a community that shares our grief. Personalization involves a recognition of who our loved one was, the impact their life has had on ours, and a celebration of the unique gifts that this personality has brought to our lives.

Photo Credit: Marshall Gorby

On Friday, May 29, 2009, at the funeral services for Norman ‘Boppo’ Thompson, fellow clowns from the Antioch Funster Clown unit honored his memory and service. The comforting and reinforcing rituals of passing by the casket to offer respects, and carrying one of own to their place of rest, were made even more meaningful with the personalization and participation of his fellow clowns.

Photo Credit: Marshall Gorby

Looking at the pictures, we can tell right away that this was a special and meaningful part of Mr. Thompson’s service. The participation of his fellow clowns reminded all present of Mr. Thompson’s spirit and of the impact he had on others.

Photo Credit: Marshall Gorby

Special thanks to blogger, Christine Quigley for finding this story. To view her post on this subject, visit: http://quigleyscabinet.blogspot.com/2009/05/clowns-funeral.html

Photo Credit: Marshall Gorby

This story was first reported by Bridgette Outten in the Springfield News Sun. For the original news story, a video and more great photos by Marshall Gorby, visit: http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/springfield-news/clown-laid-to-rest-with-highest-honor-from-peers-139855.html

Photo Credit: Marshall Gorby

For more posts about personalized funerals, follow the links:

Clown Shoe Cobbler

Biker Funeral

Racetrack Celebration

Mother and Child Buried Together

Jazz Funeral

Isabella Blow, Laid to Rest in Style

Veteran's Ship Burial

Parachutes and Lawn Chairs

Funeral Rites in Chinatown

Sprinkled in the Grave

Embalming: Part 2, Temporary Preservation

In addition to the dramatic changes that embalming can make upon the appearance of the deceased (Embalming Part 1), another result of embalming is temporary preservation.

In many cultures, funeral services take place immediately after death, and major world religions such as Islam and Judaism proscribe a narrow window of time within which burial must take place. In the United States today, many of our families are quite spread out, and we plan services to allow for newspaper notices to be printed, to fit our travel plans, or for the weekend when we’re off work. Embalming enables the delay in services and viewing.

http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/collections/travelandtour.html

Family and friends may need to travel long distances to attend funeral services

Embalming is a two stage process. First, embalming fluid is introduced to the body through the circulatory system, allowing for most tissues in the body to become temporarily preserved by binding the nitrogen atoms in the body’s proteins (muscles) together. This adds a firmness and a stability to the tissues.

The second step in embalming is the removal of waste material and digestive fluid from the body, followed by the introduction of embalming fluid into the hollow areas of the organs that do not get enough preservative fluid from the circulatory system. This fluid is, in turn, removed after it has a chance to act upon these tissues. Without the second step, rapid decomposition can occur, even with refrigeration.

Every year in the United States, families choose to have viewings without embalming because they see it as unnatural or bad for the environment. However, without embalming, the body can change rapidly, even with refrigeration. Think of how long a steak would remain fresh in your refrigerator – not very long. Now think about how long it would remain fresh if it hadn’t been separated from the waste and digestive enzymes present in the cow’s body- a very brief time indeed.

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/glossary/glossary_h.htm

Time Flies

Formaldehyde is the active ingredient in embalming fluid. It is a cousin to alcohol, which preserves in a similar manner, but has the disadvantage of leaving the skin gray and coarse. Formaldehyde is a naturally occurring and unstable gas. It is released into the atmosphere when lightning strikes, and though cutting and sanding wood in a wood shop. It is naturally present in our atmosphere and is used in the production of many consumer goods. During embalming, the formaldehyde acts upon the proteins in the body, binding together the nitrogen atoms. After this chemical reaction, all that is left of the formaldehyde are the temporarily bound proteins and water.

Amino Acid plus formaldehyde yields fixed amino acid and water,

Source: Embalming: History Theory and Practice

Copyright 2000, McGraw-Hill

Many people picture jars of preserved frogs from biology class when they hear the word formaldehyde, and imagine that an embalmed body is like a jar of formaldehyde when buried. In fact, when burial takes place, the fluid has acted upon the tissues and the very little actual formaldehyde remains in the body.

Another misconception is that embalming preserves or mummifies the body for a very long time. When bodies are embalmed for funerals they receive much less formaldehyde than when they are prepared to be used as cadavers for medical students. Enough fluid is used to allow for the body to remain stable for a viewing within a week or so. If more fluid were used, the body would remain stable longer, but it would lose the pliable, life-like skin tone that recalls the appearance of the person in life. Embalming for funerals does not prevent the break down of tissues into their basic elements. This process is only delayed to allow for friends and family to say their goodbyes. Embalming for medical schools lasts longer, but is also temporary.

Formaldehyde gas can be dangerous if inhaled (or ingested, just like methyl alcohol), and this is an issue in the preparation room during embalming when the gas can be present in the air, but not a hazard for those who are near the body during viewing, of for the ground water in cemeteries because the formaldehyde bound within the fluid and formaldehyde gas released from it are no longer present.

Part 3, Stagecraft

You Say it Best When You..

Sharing memories during a funeral service has become very popular. It is a way for family and friends to participate, to personalize the service, and to make the service reflect the happy memories of a person. Sometimes, though, it is difficult for people to stand up and share in a public place in front of a lot of people. I often suggest that if a family wants this as part of their service, that they have someone agree ahead of time to be the first to share. It's easier then, for others to share. Here are UK celebrant Charles Cowling's experiences and thoughts on the subject.

http://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/2008/09/you-say-it-best-when-you.html

You say it best when you...
At yesterday’s funeral I invited people in the audience to have their say after they’d listened to tributes from the family. I tried to make it easy. I gave them time to think about it in advance, acknowledged that speaking in public is hard, invited them to speak from where they were sitting and reminded them that the only thing that mattered was getting it right for their dead friend.
Hardly anyone spoke. I had made an elementary error: I had supposed that their primary medium for expression is words.
I remember planning a funeral with a family, fruitlessly trying to get them to tell me about their dead mum. Very little came until they explained that, as a family, talking was something they just didn’t do. Words, to them, were just so much blather. After some thought, I suggested lighting candles. They weren’t at all the sort of people who like lighting candles, I reckoned, but they leapt at the idea.
On the day of the funeral, I set up my stand, lit a tall candle in the centre and called people forward to light a satellite tealight. Normally, only a few come. On this occasion, everyone did – maybe thirty of them. The array of flames looked very pretty beside the coffin, where they spoke more eloquently than words.
Words are unlikely ever to court disaster so long as they have been checked for precision and cleansed of ambiguity. Saying by doing, though, can be tragic-comically perilous. I’m thinking of the deplorable incident of the dove (symbolic of the soul of the dead person) which, when released, flew inside the crematorium for warmth, could not be chivvied out, and had to be shot. I’m thinking of another dove which, when released, was all at once attacked by a sparrow hawk. As the horrified mourners gazed up, bloody feathers fluttered down on them. I am thinking of the balloon which settled, miles and miles away, in the horns of a £50,000 prize bull. Enraged, the bull burst its fence, charged into a road, was hit by a car and had to be destroyed. These are all true stories.
A piece of music can be eloquent, but only when it is exclusively associated with the dead person. Music so often fails to be effective because those listening to it have their own, private relationship with it.
Back in the here and now, I am chewing over the second lesson I learned from my mute mourners. I had wholly overlooked the fact that they had already done the most eloquent thing they could do for their dead friend. It was this: at some inconvenience to themselves they had made the effort to come to his funeral.

All the bells and all the whistles in all the world cannot speak more meaningfully than simply being there.

This story is from Celebrant Charles Cowling's blog The Good Funeral Guide.

To read the rest of this story, and other thoughtful pieces, visit http://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/2008/09/you-say-it-best-when-you.html

The Procession - How Important Is It Really?

http://www.archaeologicalservices.on.ca/featured.htm

http://www.judybaca.com/dia/text/images/funeral%20procession

http://www.bensware.com/firetrucks/bedfordFuneralProcession.jpg

Do you realize how much time, effort and money go into a funeral procession? A new Cadillac Hearse costs about one hundred thousand dollars, it needs regular upkeep, and must be replaced regularly (anyone who has ever experienced car trouble during a funeral procession can attest to the importance of reliable equipment.) Gas prices aren't going any lower, and personally, I've spent weeks of my life standing out in the sun, rain and snow, flaging, and lining up cars for processions. Then, there's the inconvenience to others. In Wisconsin, processions have a maximum speed of 45 miles per hour, and though you still see some respectful people stopping or taking off their hats as a procession comes by, more often there's honking or dangerous passing from those who feel that they shouldn't be slowed down by someone else's death.

So why do we bother?

The word funeral actually comes from the latin word for torchlight procession, the traditional ancient rite, the main event, the respectful and cermonious transport of a person to their place of rest. This is the final journey, the last walk a family takes with their loved one, the 'second line' of the Jazz funeral, and it is both symbolic and healing. The procession is a public expression and enactment of the love, respect, loss of a loved one that allows both family and friends to participate. It is an opportunity for the residents of a town to witness this expression of love and respect. The procession says :

This person was important to us.

This day is not like other days.

This journey is not like other journeys.

Our loss is meaningful enough that we take special care in a
special vehicle to solemnly and ceremoniously convey the earthly remains of our
loved one to a special place where their life will be honored and remembered.

At ground zero after 9/11, whenever a part of one of the victims bodies was found, all work stopped, and even if it as the tiniest part of someone's remains, a hearse and escort slowly drove out as all present stood at attention in respectful silence. This is the standard of conduct that should be followed in respect for the passing of any life.

Why a hearse? For many, a Cadillac or Lincoln hearse feels to be the appropriate vehicle to convey the respect on solemnity of the occasion, but this isn't so for everyone. The important thing is that the vehicle is appropriate and intentional. I have witnessed and encouraged processions where the deceased was carried by horse drawn wagon, in a loved truck, in a special motorcycle hearse or on foot, and where cremated remains were carried in a favorite sports car, or by bicycle. I have led proccessions with fire trucks, police cars, motorcycles, an hot rods following, and these were perhaps the most poingnant and meaningful and respectful of all.

A funeral procession is one of the most meaningful and beautiful parts of a funeral service, and it's actually one of the least expensive. Why go to all the bother? Isn't that person important enough, whoever they are, that everyone can slow down a bit and drive slowly with their lights on for their final ride through town?

Jazz Funeral 'Just a Closer Walk with Thee'

New Orleans Jazz Funeral for tuba player Kerwin James from onenawlins via YouTube

As a funeral director, watching this makes me cringe at the possiblility of the casket being dropped, but the beauty of this ritual and love expressed by it are inspiring. The video is a bit long, but I think you'll find yourself watching it over and over as I did.