What do people want when they plan
a funeral?
The simplest answer I think is choice. The
immediate aftermath of a death can feel like
the worst time to have to make choices; but
finding it hard doesn’t mean you don’t still
want it. And choice is perhaps the most controversial topic in the funeral trade today; or
more positively, it’s the trigger for change.
Fewer people nowadays want the done thing
simply because it’s done, or because everyone
in the family always has, or because someone
in black says so. Some examples that in the
past dozen years have become accepted: a
cardboard coffin; the favourite music of the
person who’s died; a child’s poem.
Choice doesn’t mean not having the horsedrawn hearse, only that you could equally
have a motorbike with the coffin in the sidecar. But if you don’t know about motor-bike
hearses, how can you choose one? This I
think is the challenge to funeral directors and
celebrants: to help the bereaved use all their
creativity and intimate knowledge of the person who has died and come up with something that exactly matches them.
At my end (I’m a celebrant and occasional
funeral director) this involves time, patience
and empathy. Because the second thing I
think that people want is to deal with an ordinary human being: not an efficient bureaucrat (though that’s useful), not a customer
service adviser, but a person. I’m fortunate
in working partly in people’s homes. They
don’t have to put on their best clothes and
ring at the door of a shop-front with net curtains. Instead they’re in charge, on their own
territory; they can offer tea, and explain the
photo on the mantelpiece and we can have
an ordinary conversation about planning this
extraordinary occasion.
So what are the choices?
Infinite, probably, at least within the
limits of law and the rules of the crem
or graveyard (and if those rules seem
too tough we can shop around). For
instance:
You don’t have to have a ceremony at all.
You can sit in silence, or just play music, or chat among yourselves about the person. You can have a simple cremation, with
no-one present and hold a memorial later in a hall, or a pub, or
your own home.