This is something I’ve had to face recently. My feelings about them veer from feeling weird about them to darkly comical.
Mum didn’t believe in anything, though she did at one point believe in god, with the whole ‘don’t eat meat on Good Friday or you’ll be struck down by god’ thing, something I in my teens disproved by eating meat on Good Friday and later burning a bible on that day for good measure.
Then she one day decided to read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and that changed or maybe cemented her mind change with the whole god thing.
Mum went, that was one of the terms she used before she passed, “goes”, “gone” were others that we used, she went in hospital.
That’s the end, that’s where she went, she’s gone, that’s the end of the story.
A funeral seems like an epilogue to the story, not written by the author, but instead by someone else, someone who isn’t the author of the story, they’re brought in to add this little piece to the end of the story. But it’s not the author writing it, it’s not them, their style, their ink on the page.
It’s something that doesn’t need to be there, the story has finished, this thing doesn’t need to be tacked on the end.
It seems disrespectful, this isn’t something that mum would have wanted, but without having written down anything it seems we must go ahead. Though not for us, for others, that’s what makes me feel unease about this process.
We met with the celebrant yesterday. That was weird and uncomfortable, not something I will be putting my brother through, I will leave instructions that there’ll be no funeral, put me in a hole, plant a tree above.
One of the weirdest things that was suggested was to have a reading at the funeral, a verse, not a religious one, but just a reading of some sort. The weirdest and now that I reflect on it pretty sick thing is a reading written from the first person perspective. So it’s as though mum has said this verse, this bit of prose the celebrant had in her folder of words.
That’s basically putting words into someone’s mouth, someone who’s gone.
Just to make people feel in the funeral, that was what the celebrant seemed to say, make may be too strong, I think she said “allow”.
Unless you’ve done the soap opera / TV series style thing of leaving a message in video format I don’t think there should be anything said by the person whose funeral it is.
Another of the things I had to choose was the music. This I found somewhat darkly comical to choose music for the funeral, they wanted three pieces of music. Mum had an iPod and therefore a pool of music for me to look at, though she tended to just listen through a playlist and then let it repeat. Which meant that I’ve got a lot of songs that have 5+ plays, but I think that’s only because they were in a particular playlist.
Though not all were “appropriate”, mum liked certain songs, some sad, some happy, some Righteous Brothers, some Human Nature doing Motown, some ABBA and some Don McLean.
Out of the music that had 5+ plays I’ve gone with ABBA - She’s My Kind of Girl, Simon & Garfunkel - Hey, Schoolgirl, The Eagles - Life in the Fast Lane.
The last one is probably the least “appropriate” of these songs for a funeral, but is thematically how mum lived her life.
I don’t think there even needs to be a funeral. The story has ended, for my family the end was in the hospital, mum went peacefully, not in pain. That is enough.
There is no “after”. There is no “better place”. We have this life and that is it.
I have decided I will not say anything if anyone says “she’s in a better place”, I will hold my tongue for that one. That I can see is people wanting to say something, there’s not too much religious connotation in that, despite the suggestion of heaven.
But if god is mentioned I will not. Especially the particularly hateful “it was god’s will”, which has to be one of the worst things to say. That one will possibly upset me and I’ve warned my brother that I may raise my voice, cry or possibly be hysteric should someone say something like that. I’m sure anyone who’s there on the day will just put my outburst down to the latter, should it happen.
Mum didn’t believe in anything, though she did at one point believe in god, with the whole ‘don’t eat meat on Good Friday or you’ll be struck down by god’ thing, something I in my teens disproved by eating meat on Good Friday and later burning a bible on that day for good measure.
Then she one day decided to read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and that changed or maybe cemented her mind change with the whole god thing.
Mum went, that was one of the terms she used before she passed, “goes”, “gone” were others that we used, she went in hospital.
That’s the end, that’s where she went, she’s gone, that’s the end of the story.
A funeral seems like an epilogue to the story, not written by the author, but instead by someone else, someone who isn’t the author of the story, they’re brought in to add this little piece to the end of the story. But it’s not the author writing it, it’s not them, their style, their ink on the page.
It’s something that doesn’t need to be there, the story has finished, this thing doesn’t need to be tacked on the end.
It seems disrespectful, this isn’t something that mum would have wanted, but without having written down anything it seems we must go ahead. Though not for us, for others, that’s what makes me feel unease about this process.
We met with the celebrant yesterday. That was weird and uncomfortable, not something I will be putting my brother through, I will leave instructions that there’ll be no funeral, put me in a hole, plant a tree above.
One of the weirdest things that was suggested was to have a reading at the funeral, a verse, not a religious one, but just a reading of some sort. The weirdest and now that I reflect on it pretty sick thing is a reading written from the first person perspective. So it’s as though mum has said this verse, this bit of prose the celebrant had in her folder of words.
That’s basically putting words into someone’s mouth, someone who’s gone.
Just to make people feel in the funeral, that was what the celebrant seemed to say, make may be too strong, I think she said “allow”.
Unless you’ve done the soap opera / TV series style thing of leaving a message in video format I don’t think there should be anything said by the person whose funeral it is.
Another of the things I had to choose was the music. This I found somewhat darkly comical to choose music for the funeral, they wanted three pieces of music. Mum had an iPod and therefore a pool of music for me to look at, though she tended to just listen through a playlist and then let it repeat. Which meant that I’ve got a lot of songs that have 5+ plays, but I think that’s only because they were in a particular playlist.
Though not all were “appropriate”, mum liked certain songs, some sad, some happy, some Righteous Brothers, some Human Nature doing Motown, some ABBA and some Don McLean.
Out of the music that had 5+ plays I’ve gone with ABBA - She’s My Kind of Girl, Simon & Garfunkel - Hey, Schoolgirl, The Eagles - Life in the Fast Lane.
The last one is probably the least “appropriate” of these songs for a funeral, but is thematically how mum lived her life.
I don’t think there even needs to be a funeral. The story has ended, for my family the end was in the hospital, mum went peacefully, not in pain. That is enough.
There is no “after”. There is no “better place”. We have this life and that is it.
I have decided I will not say anything if anyone says “she’s in a better place”, I will hold my tongue for that one. That I can see is people wanting to say something, there’s not too much religious connotation in that, despite the suggestion of heaven.
But if god is mentioned I will not. Especially the particularly hateful “it was god’s will”, which has to be one of the worst things to say. That one will possibly upset me and I’ve warned my brother that I may raise my voice, cry or possibly be hysteric should someone say something like that. I’m sure anyone who’s there on the day will just put my outburst down to the latter, should it happen.