What Is A Funeral Service Anyway?
A funeral is a ceremony to mark the sacred transition between life and death.
The transition between having that person's physical presence in your life to that of holding their spiritual being in your heart.
We often say that the funeral is ABOUT the person who has died, but it is FOR those who remain.
A funeral is essentially, a conversation of farewell, between every person in attendance and the one who has gone.
It is a time to consider and to say thank you to them for everything they gave during their life, for their love and their contribution.
Perhaps it is a time of forgiveness. For things not said, or not done, or for past misunderstandings or conflict.
Most of these conversations are intensely personal and are often held silently, in addition to the spoken tributes.
Some people feel it easiest to put their farewell in writing, placing a letter on the coffin.
Others choose to express themselves through a poem, or a reading – the words of a song, or even the simple placing of a flower.
It can be of great comfort to approach the coffin during or perhaps at the end of the ceremony. For each person to make their own physical connection, their own touch of farewell.
We can weave this element in to the ceremony itself. Inviting family forward to light candles, or to place individual flowers can really help ground them.
We have found that inviting people forward bridges some of the feeling of unreality that is often felt when people see the coffin for the first time.
Occasionally, we begin a ceremony by asking all the mourners to come forward to write a message of farewell on the coffin.
More often, we close the ceremony with an invitation for everyone to come forward, one by one, to place a flower before they leave the chapel
This allows everyone to have their own final thoughts, and their own private farewell - quietly, gently and with immense dignity.
Every person is unique. Every family is different.
With us, every Funeral is Individual.
-- 0416 178 129
-- kathryn@northernbeachesfunerals.com.au