Funerals & Memorials
A celebration of end of life is a chance for us to say our goodbyes to our loved ones and to remember them with love and to celebrate their life and share cherished memories.
It can be a very moving tribute that helps us to start the healing process.
An end of life celebration allows loved ones to come together to share their grief and find comfort from each other.
A celebrants role is a vital role. It is their responsibility to bring a grieving family's vision of how they would like to pay tribute to their loved one to reality. To listen to the families wishes and when needed and asked for, make suggestions.
Most importantly create a moving ceremony that allows the family to say goodbye in a ceremony that is filled with respect and dignity.
There is great skill in and knowhow in writing the perfect ceremony and ensuring that it all proceeds according to plan.
Living Wake
A relatively new trend is to have a living wake, where a person who is either elderly or terminally ill, holds the equivalent of a funeral and wake but is still here and gets to enjoy creating a memory for both themselves and their family and friends.
These ceremonies can be held bedside, at home, in a park, in a hall or function venue.
This can be an extreme help in allowing family to move through the grieving process when the inevitable happens and the person passes away.
A celebrant's role is the same as it would be at a celebration of life ceremony (funeral). It is to assist in the design a ceremony to pay respect and celebration of life the only difference being that the person is still here to participate and rejoice in the company of friends and family.
Scattering of Ashes or Interment of Ashes
Not everyone wishes to keep the cremains (ashes) at their home or pay to have them interred, it may also be the wishes of the deceased for their cremains to be scattered, buried, interned at a particular place or to maybe even be sent into space by way of fireworks. Possibly even made into jewellery or diamonds.
These ceremonies are often smaller more private gatherings and a celebrant is the perfect person to create a ceremony to pay the final respects for this very last journey.
Even though the family may have already held a funeral they may find that they need something more than just going out and scattering the cremains to the wind or burying them and that they need to have a ceremony to formally recognise this last and final step in a very respectful manner.
Sometimes it's that family members haven't been able to attend the funeral and this gives them a way to pay their respects in a more personal way.
Process of Grief
Pet Funerals
More than 64% of Australians own a pet.
Pets are more than just the dog that lives outside, they are integral members of our families and are often referred to as out fur babies.
What do we do when we lose a pet, for some it is a simple matter of burying them in the backyard but for others this is not an option as it does not pay homage to the important place they hold in our hearts.
There is an increasing amount of pet cemeteries appearing and more families choosing to have their beloved family per cremated and a funeral to allow family members to start the grieving process and to also show just how much their fur family was loved.
Help is at Hand
