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Funerals Can Begin the Transformative Process

By Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT

The funeral is an organized, purposeful, flexible, time-limited, group-centered reaction to a loss.

— Lamers, 1965

When you remember funeral services you've attended, how many have clearly reflected the true character of the person who has died? How many have changed an occasion of loss into an opportunity to celebrate a life, a celebration that supports the healing and growth of those who are burdened with loss? Not many, I would venture to say.

Except for remembering you went to the funeral, you probably can't recall what was said at most of those events you've attended. That's probably because, not infrequently, funerals are so generic it's hard to believe the people who officiated actually knew the person upon whose life they were commenting. And it doesn't matter what frailties a person has had when they were living. Once they're dead, they're a saint!

How much better to attend a funeral or memorial service where you're really CELEBRATING a life! Designing a funeral to honor the true character and achievements of a person can provide good memories for all who attend the service. It can also set the stage for recovery of those who grieve by giving them an experience of something positive when life can seem very dark and sad.

Therefore, in this and two articles I invite you to consider the possibility that a funeral or memorial service need not be somber, grave, humorless—or generic.

To help you understand what I mean, I'd like to tell you about the summer of 1989. That year one of my favorite aunts and my father were honored and celebrated in two funeral services that reflected their personalities in very distinctive ways. In fact, the services were so remarkable that several people asked to have a copy of the remarks made at their services!

While you don't know my aunt or father, I believe you will have a very good picture of who they were if you read the comments of their services that I've made available online at A Celebration of the Life of Ruth L. Swihart and A Celebration of the Life of Rev. Arthur H. Fabian.

My Aunt Ruth

In May 1989, my Aunt Ruth Swihart died after a brief illness. Although I was unable to attend her funeral in Goshen, Indiana, I heard about the service from my mother, who considered it the "best" funeral service she'd ever attended. Since my mother had just lost her last and most favorite sibling, I wondered what could be so wonderful about a service that is usually marked by solemnity and sorrow.

When I later read the remarks made during the service by two of my cousins, I recognized that her family had truly planned the service as a celebration of the life of a remarkably unusual and yet very ordinary woman. When you read the comments of my two cousins during her funeral service, you will discover a person of extremely fine character who truly lived her life with zeal, love, thankfulness, joy, and laughter—all of which were expressed by the pastor and by her children.

In the celebration of that spirited life, the pastor, after his homily, pointed to the casket and asked the congregation to sing some of her favorite hymns with pep and enthusiasm, "Just the way that little lady over there would want you to!"

My Father

The last two years of my father's life were spent in increasing physical disability and memory loss. The sturdiness of his Germanic ancestors kept him going long after we thought he would have died. Watching him and my mother interact during this time gave me an experience of the "winding down" of life. Then, after receiving a call that my father was finally dying, I returned to my parents' home late that summer to stay with my mother and help her and my sister and brother make arrangements for his funeral.

The planning and activities of the week before and after his death provided me with a gift I will never forget. I would like to give you, the reader, some of that gift by printing the comments that were made during his funeral. I hope they can convey to you the joy and celebration of his life that were incorporated into those final days and encapsulated in the funeral service. Most of all, I hope they can be an example of a truly celebratory funeral.

You see, in large part because my mother had so much enjoyed the funeral of her sister, she wanted us to create a service which would honor my father in a unique way when he died that August. She wanted to paint a portrait of him which would permit friends and family to see him in a more complete light than a traditional service would allowed.

In some ways, the healing service began as we waited for my father to die and, later, for the relatives to arrive after his death (see When Families Don't Acknowledge a Loved One is Dying). My mother recalled fond memories of her husband of fifty-nine years and we children recalled what we remembered about our father. Our children talked about their memories of their grandfather. The result of all that talking captured the spirit of my father as I would not have imagined possible.

Of particular pleasure to me was the decision to have my two brothers and my nephew speak during the service, just as my cousins had spoken at the funeral of my aunt. Also, the grandchildren, in whom my father took such pleasure, were asked to be pallbearers. Since so many of the grandchildren attended the service, one group carried the casket out of the church and the other group carried it from the hearse to the cemetery lot.

If you read the remarks from his funeral service, you will learn a great deal about my father. You may be able to see that he was not a perfect person (as none of us are) and was not presented as though he had been a saint. In fact, I had often traced both my poor self-esteem and my perfectionism to his strict rules when I was growing up. However, listening to the remarks during the funeral service/celebration reinforced many pleasant memories and gave me a new perspective which softened some of the sharper edges.

As a continuation of the celebration of the lives of my aunt and father thirteen years ago, you can read some of the remarks made during these two services. I hope they will be an example of how you, too, might consider a service of celebration for anyone in your family when the opportunity arises. I also hope you can realize the healing power such celebrations can be and how they can contribute to the recovery from grief of those who attend these services.