You can ask Uncle Fred and Cousin Dinah
to talk about the person’s life; and friend
Mavis and grand-daughter Chloe and
neighbor Stan. Then have a space where
anyone can come up and tell a story, or one
of the dead person’s awful jokes. (You can
definitely laugh). If all that is likely to take
too long, book a double time-slot.
You can tell everyone to wear purple, or Arsenal shirts.
You can carry the coffin; and you here isn’t
just six strong blokes of the same height, but
men and women and teenagers, holding it
not on their shoulders but in their hands.
You can delegate as much or as little as you
want to the funeral director and/or the celebrant. There’s no law saying you have to
use anyone, except the staff at the crem or
the cemetery. You can tell the celebrant
about the person’s life and ask them to
write the eulogy (a good celebrant will give
you the draft to check); or write it yourself
and ask him or her to read it; or both write
and read it and use the celebrant as a kind
of MC. Or get Step-brother Pedro instead
to run the thing.
You can film the ceremony or take photos.
In some crems you can webcast the funeral
so that Mo and Roshan in Argentina and
Auntie Vi ill in bed at home can watch it
and hear their messages read out.
You can scatter the ashes just about anywhere (of course you need permission from
the landowner). So you can say goodbye in
a park, by the river or on a hill.
The funerals I’ve felt most privileged to
work on have been the most surprising and
personal. A poet reading her own poems
to her mother; a jazz musician playing for
his wife; an elderly woman leaning on the
lectern to say what an old stickler her good
friend was; the congregation singing The
Lambeth Walk 2V&ǒ