A funeral is a ceremony focusing on the life of someone who has died. It is also crafted to support those who are grieving and seeking to continue their lives without the loved one.

A funeral provides a container for the human experience of death….humankind’s most challenging stage of life. It celebrates the life of one who has died, as well as facilitates the grieving of those who were connected to them.

The ceremony itself has a fourfold movement. There is ‘remembering’ of the person who has died, expression of ‘gratefulness’ for their lives, pondering of the task of ‘letting go’ of what has been, and an invitation to begin the task of releasing them.

Funerals are unique to the circumstances of the one who has died: whether death was expected or not, or whether death followed a full life or was much too early. Maybe there had been suffering, and there is a sense of relief mixed with the grief.

Grief is also unique to each person connected to the one who died. The unique essence of a funeral will follow this uniqueness and my role is to help craft such a ceremony. This is done through words, music, eulogies, poetry, photos, objects that reflect the life of the one who has died.