I’ve been a guest at more funerals than I have weddings, christenings and anniversaries put together. I know them well.
I come from a large family of Irish Catholics and my mother was one of nine.
My grandfather died when my mother was young. I never met my great-grandmother either. But I felt like I knew them because I grew up hearing tales about them.
My gran’s house was where everyone gathered. Six of us (mum, gran, uncle Tony, my two sisters and I) lived in gran’s house until I started school.
One of my earliest, happy memories is sitting quietly under the kitchen table as I listened to the grownups share their stories.
My gran died when I was ten. My mum when I was twelve.
Comfort in routine
During those times of grief, there was a certain comfort to the familiar routine of funeral cars, the uniform of dark clothes and sad faces, the priest, the prayers, and the slow procession to cemetery that followed.
As the years passed, my gran’s generation, and several other family members and friends passed with them.
Raised a Catholic, I thought that all funerals were like the Catholic ones and that my own would inevitably follow the same pattern of payers and a priest talking about heaven when I died.
At funerals in my twenties, what had felt a comfort became a feeling of going through the motions of the ceremony, until you got to the reception.
It was only there that you really got to connect with the other people sharing your pain.
The person we were all missing was alive again in the stories that were told and remembered.
Wanting more
With each funeral that I went to, I found myself increasingly frustrated. I wanted more for the people who had died.
2015 was a difficult year. My uncle Tony, who had always been a father figure to me, died suddenly in January. In August, my aunt Nomi, my mum’s sister who had raised us after she died, also passed away. My sisters and I planned both funerals.
That October, I went travelling in Central America and Mexico to clear my head. In Oaxaca, for Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, I was overwhelmed by the explosion of colour and joy.
I witnessed the ofrendas, the calaveras, the papel picado, the marigolds, the food, the music, the parades and the dancing in the streets, the people leaving their doors open to welcome in strangers and the spirits of loved ones.
I visited cemeteries and chatted with families around the graves as they shared stories and raised toasts to the dead.
Feeling welcome there, being invited to share those experiences, took me back to my childhood; listening to stories about people I didn’t know, but knew how important they were to other people.
Celebrating life
Día de los Muertos felt like a celebration of life and I wished the funerals we had planned for Nomi and Tony had been more like that. Rituals evolve and new traditions are made by each generation, I thought.
I’m now a trained celebrant. It taught me about weddings and namings and renewal of vows, but as I embark on my new career path, funerals are the ritual that I feel most connected to.
Our time is filled with traditions that make life more beautiful and I want to make funerals a bigger part of that. The end of life is just as important as the moments we mark along the way.
The final death is said to be moment the last memory of you fades. My experience of death and loss is about not wanting to forget.
I want to help people at the end of life, and the people who’ll remember them, create an unforgettable celebration.