“He doesn’t want anything special”. “It’s not what she believed”. “He wants no fuss”. “That’s not how she wanted people remembering her”. “He just wants a cardboard box”. Steve from Tong and Peryer Funeral Directors has heard it all.
“I can (and do) wax poetic about death acceptance and reclaiming our death rituals back from the Men (and ladies) in Black (or blue or grey). My daily conversations are generally enthusiastic, curious, and can even be light-hearted. But then on occasion I am brought sharply back to reality when I’m met with a response that best resembles abject horror.
You want me to keep my dead mum at home?!
“Well no, I don’t want you to; I want you to be able to if that’s your wish………”
It’s in those moments I remember that I do death daily: theres palliative care, assisted dying, rest homes, on very public hospital wards; during coroners calls with NZ Police; in the hospital mortuary, in our mortuary. I have done funerals in village halls, in back gardens, in very nice vineyards, ooh, and in a field…
I’ve attended funerals in a really seedy bar, a car showroom and on a boat in the middle of the English Channel… I get it, I am slightly desensitised to the enormity of death and the emotions it evokes (I can still hear the anger it can unleash when two sisters tried to decide between sponge cake or a scone at mum’s refreshments!)”
For thousands of years, we have gathered for funerals because they meet our emotional needs. The need to connect with other grieving people, to support one another and validate each other’s feelings, to feel we have ‘done the right thing’
The ceremony gives us the chance to connect meaningfully with the person who has died. To say goodbye, to look at the coffin or shroud and to start to wrap our brains around the fact that we won’t see or hold that person again. Instead, we need to build a new relationship with them in our hearts and minds, based on memory and love.
On a more abstract level, death and funerals can prompt us to think more deeply about how we’re living our lives. They can be a moment to connect with nature and the cycles of life, to pause in our busy lives to think and feel more deeply, in the knowledge that we will all share the same end.
In place of a single (and so, shared) understanding of what a funeral should look like, a range of expressions – often reflecting the unique personality, values, and preferences of the deceased – have sprung up. So, where tradition once was, there is no longer a right or wrong way of doing these things called funerals.
One thing that hasn’t changed, is the importance of saying goodbye.
For someone’s family and friends, they have been a mother, a grandmother, a friend, an aunt and so on. People need to be able to honour those relationships. But, I have experience watching as close family and friends struggle with meeting their own needs, when they are under pressure, to do what tradition says is the right thing and so take an easy route and opt for the good old out clause – that’s so much easier, right?
I’m not so sure, as I have also spoken to many people who have traumatic memories of missing meaningful opportunities to say goodbye, or of being sidelined or excluded from a core moment in their lives. These can be recounted decades later with disappointment, pain, regret and even anger.
Here comes the money grabbing undertaker I hear you say. BUT, I truly believe, it is so important for our future health and wellbeing that we do what we need to do when someone dies, whatever that may be, to acknowledge that different people need different things. It takes real thought and care to make sure both the public and private parts of a person’s life get the attention they deserve when it comes to their final goodbye – whether the most modest or the social event of the year.
At its core, Tong and Peryer Funeral Directors believe it is essential for healthy grieving that people get what they want and need from funerals and their related rituals. So, amid all the pageantry, tradition, and formality we all witness, we know the magic comes from the smallest of moments too, and we know what to do to ensure everyone gets what their respective needs met, that’s who we are!
We’re always ready to answer any questions and talk more planning a unique funeral experience, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.
