Plan B is (temporarily) Plan A

 

I know this will sound weird to most people, but I found conducting funerals to be one of the most satisfying things I did as a vicar.  Making an awful day a less less awful and giving comfort to someone at a very dark time is a privilege.

I don't take many funerals these days.  I find leading a coffin over ancient churchyards (which are always very uneven underfoot) to be difficult.  I'm not the regular pastor for any village these days and if the regular person is available s/he will take the funeral.  I am truly Plan B.

But sometimes I am asked for by name.  I can only take a funeral with the permission of the regular vicar (or rural dean) but it would be very unusual for anyone to say no - they've got more than enough to do anyway!  For the second time this year that has happened and I feel privileged that I am someone's Plan A.

J died very suddenly a couple of weeks ago and the coroner has been involved so the funeral can't take place for another couple of weeks.  As you know I am retired so I have more time to give care than most clergy would have.  I've visited her husband twice and had several phone calls and will have a lot more contact before (and after) the funeral.  After all, this is personal and professional contact.  

And J is in my prayers.  Her husband is comforted a little by that.  

That was June!

 I keep hearing about extreme hot weather in various parts of the world but Lincolnshire has missed out on the heat - I had the heating on for a brief period this morning as I was so uncomfortable.  

But June has been quite a good month.  We had our annual family picnic at Clumber Part.  Four more people had planned to come but chickened out because the weather forecast was foul.   As it happened the five of us and Zola the dog didn't see any rain.  

My weight loss has continued at about a pound a week so I am happy about that.  I haven't tried to walk much as I await surgery but as yet I don't know when that will be.  

I've been very busy decluttering and have disposed (by various means) of six hundred items since March so the house is losing weight as well!  

The garden is flourishing thanks to You Know Who.  At the moment I'm harvesting just spring onions and salad leaves but soon there will be more.  Yum!!

I've been venturing out a little more and have visited friends as well as going to a few shops.  I had the privilege of taking the funeral of an old schoolfriend's mum.  This lady was wonderful and she used to hide us in her house when we bunked off cross country running all those years ago.    What's more she lived next to the headmistress!  The funeral was my  thank you after all these years.  

I also helped a couple re-affirm their vows after twenty years of marriage.  And at the same time I blessed their baby granddaughter who has a great grandad you may have heard of - Jack!  

The Right Words

You will have gathered that I love the lead-up to Christmas.  I enjoy making things for my friends, meeting up with them, even writing cards (but the last seems to take a very long time).

December is not a time of unmixed joy.  On 6th December 1995 my Father died.  On 5th December 2006 my Mother died.  And on 30th December 2010 my only sister died.  I have known what it is to wait and watch and weep with the dying when festivities are going on around.  And I have known what it is to long to be left alone when the world seems to be full of crowds.

Each December I meet professionally with families who are bereaved.  Christmas will never be quite the same again for them.  In a year or two Christmas will again be joyful in a different way but that first year it's just a time to be endured as best as possible.  Cards come through the door wishing "Merry Christmas" and the world is filled with festivity but all you want to do is crawl under a duvet.

Today I am meeting up with a friend who knew all my family - we've known each other nearly fifty years.  I know she will remember and mention my parents gently and sensitively.  We will laugh at memories of them just as we will laugh at the doings of my friend's grandchildren.  We are each enriched by our families, both past and present.

This is not intended to be a maudlin post but rather to say that few people can think of "the right words" to say to someone who is sad at this time.  The reason for that is simple: there are no "right words".  That doesn't mean that the other person is unfeeling or uncaring, just that they too are human.

I've thought long and hard as to whether to hit the publish button for this post because I know that these aren't the right words either.  However, I want to reach out to anyone who is sad - those who wait or weep or watch - and these words are all I have.

God bless.

Funerals 2

So, what do I do after I've been to talk to the family?

The first thing is to type up my notes from the visit - often not an easy task as I have difficulties in reading my own handwriting!  If the visit has been the usual mixture of tears and laughter I won't have been exactly careful how I write and the information will be in a very haphazard order.  I need to get the notes sorted as soon as possible if I am to make any sense of them.

Then I have to contact anyone else who needs to be on board.  If the service is to be at a crematorium this isn't difficult - I just tell the Funeral Director the hymns and any special instruction and s/he does the rest.  If it's in church I have to check that no-one else will be doing things in church at the same time eg organ tuners or flower arrangers.  I need to find an organist.  The churchwardens need to know what is happening so they can make sure that there will be a verger or sidesmen and indeed that the church will be unlocked.  Cleaners need to know so the church will be at its best - dead or dying flowers never improved any service.  Heating may be needed.  If the burial is to be in a churchyard the plot needs to be allocated and marked ready for the gravedigger.  This is quite a long list and as I am no longer "the vicar" of the churches where I conduct funerals I have to be extra careful to make sure that everyone is on-board..  

But it is in my study that the real work of preparing a funeral is done.  I do a lot of funerals but I care deeply about each one.  I know that there is a family missing a much loved member.  No funeral is ever routine.  I am to thank God for a life which was unique and to speak on behalf of his/her family.  It is there in front of my computer screen that my hardest job is done.  Often I have listened to deeply moving stories and my own emotions may be in turmoil.  I need to pray not just for the families but for myself, that I may say helpful things.

The day of the funeral I make sure I have nothing to do before the funeral and these days, preferably nothing else to do all day.  That's a luxury I couldn't have before I retired.  I wear robes to take the service but I also make sure that my day clothes are suitable for that particular funeral - for example if a woman died of breast cancer the family may have decided to wear pink so I wear a pink  clerical shirt in case I am expected to go to the reception afterwards.  I try and be at least three quarters of an hour early at church (or twenty minutes early at a crematorium) to make sure everything is ready and to give myself time to talk to mourners.  

Most funerals take between twenty and thirty minutes - at a crematorium the time is very strictly regulated but there is more leeway for a service in church.  Some families want to read poems or read tributes and I have to keep an eye on the time at a crematorium chapel and may need to speed up the rest of the service.  I also need to keep everything suitably respectful without being "heavy".

After the service I go to the reception or wake if asked.  I always print out the text of my address or eulogy and give this to the family.  This is usually appreciated but I give it in an envelope so if they want to they can bin it unread.  

The family will be in my prayers for quite a while after the funeral and I'll usually try and visit after the funeral and at the first anniversary of the death. 

Funerals 1

I realise that a post about funerals is a little unusual but at times funerals seem to dominate my life!  However, most people have to organise very few funerals and I wondered if a little information from my point of view would be helpful

As you know I am a retired vicar.  Until nearly nine years ago I was vicar of five parishes in rural Lincolnshire but although I have retired I still take a couple of funerals a month.  This might sound weird but I enjoy taking funerals - it's really satisfying making a very difficult day a little less daunting.  The regular clergy could be overwhelmed by the sheer number of funerals so help is needed from people like me.

Maybe you've had to organise a funeral and you've felt a little embarrassed because the person you've loved wasn't the most regular of churchgoers and you're not sure how the vicar will be with that.  I can promise you that the vicar is very well used to that situation - it's true of the vast majority of funerals which I take.  I'm just happy to help.  (By the way, I'm saying "vicar" because that's the usual term in the Church of England but much of what I say here would be true of any Christian minister.)

Often the first thing that happens from my point of view is that I get a call from a Funeral Director.  We'll work out a suitable time for a service, s/he will tell me if it will be a cremation or burial and we'll make outline arrangements.  S/he will check back with the family and then send me details - age, next-of-kin, as well as timings.  These days it's easy to get all that sorted using e mail.

Once I have the necessary information the first thing is that the family is in my prayers.  I've been bereaved myself, I've had to organise funerals, and I've appreciated the prayers of others.  I'll then contact the family and make arrangements to visit them.  I try and make this fairly soon as I want the families to feel confident that I'm"on the case".  Often I make more than one visit.  

When I visit I take the information which the funeral director has sent and I try to get a feel for the sort of funeral which is wanted.  Often the family will want a thanksgiving for a life.  It's helpful if they've written down a few facts but I try and get stories, opinions, little ideas about how the person lived his or her life.  I try and make every funeral as personal as possible but I can do that only of the family gives me some material to work with.  Because I work in rural communities I find that even if I don't know the family I know someone else who does, and I ask if it's OK to talk to those mutual friends.  I don't think I've ever been asked not to.  I make loads of notes and it's often a session filled with both tears and laughter as we talk about a much loved husband or mum, sister or uncle.  Before I leave I always say a prayer with the family.  

In my next post I'll write about what I do after this visit.

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Ashes to ashes

When I tell people that one of the best bits of being a vicar was taking funerals they look at me as though I am totally mad.  But it’s true, taking a funeral is really satisfying. The day we have to go to the funeral of someone we have loved is one of the worst days we ever have to go through and if I can make it a less horrible day I’ve done a good days work.

A few weeks ago I took a funeral for which I was booked about fifteen years ago, which sounds very peculiar but let me explain.  Rob’s wife Dottie was a good friend of my late mother and I took her funeral and afterwards Rob asked me if when the time came I would do the same for him.  The time came in June when Rob died on his 97^th birthday.  He had outlived most of his friends, he and Dottie hadn’t had any children and his only brother had died at El Alamein so there were no relatives, just a couple of ladies who had been his friends and had organised his life when he became incapable of caring for himself.  However he had been a very good golfer in his time and had been Captain and President of his golf club so there were quite a few fellow golfers who came to pay their respects at the crematorium.

Today several of us went to the golf club and we scattered his ashes.   As is so often the case it was quite a jolly affair.  About a dozen of us went out to a pretty hole near a pond and the captain did the honours while I said a prayer.  The ladies laid flowers and someone threw a golf ball into the pond in Rob’s memory to the sound of everyone cheering then it was back to the nineteenth hole. 

All in all it was a lovely memorial of a life well lived.  I think Rob would have approved.