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Modern Funeral Customs

My BFF and I are arranging the funeral of the man who was the third person in our little triumvirate. It was suicide. I don't think I need to detail my distress. I am hoping that that y'all can help with suggestions and ideas. Expressing that you too are sad, that you will never meet this vibrant creative, caring and endlessly curious person would be very helpful to me. That and tolerance for my fragility at the moment if I get something wrong.

He had no spiritual faith and he wanted one. He tried many things but none of them clicked. BFF has no faithy but it doesn't bother her. I'm an Old Catholic Christian. Masses are being said for him in case his soul wants to avail itself of a ladder, signpost or whatever. Everything has been left to us, his blood family cut out entirely. (His blood mother, for example, believed that autism meant he was cursed and tried to exorcise him when he was a child in various ways, including beating and fire. The attitude continued as an adult)

The DPF says that we should have charge of the body once it is released. The police are ignoring this and have given keys to the property to the blood family and told them they are entitled to take the corpse.

BFF and I are trying to find words to say or read. With or without the body. The format is likely to be about 30 people in a circle facing each other, each person reading/saying something if the can, either their own or our suggestions. If somene cannot speak the they will pass their chosen words to someone who can, probable me.

So far we have these. But we need more, for all tastes, to help people who find communication difficult at the best of times, and this is not the best of times. Please contribute something if you can. I can explain why each of the ones below has been chosen, if it's not clear.

Hail the Traveler! We commit you back from where you came
— to the arms of your ancestors. May there be peace where there was anger.
May there be healing where there was hurt.
Go quickly to the place that your old ones called home.
For those who grieve for your passing, let there be healing.
For those who grieve for who you were, let there be healing.
For those who grieve for what you could have been, let there be healing.
Hail the Traveler. We celebrate your journey.
Reprinted with the kind permission of Quetta Garrison-Madsen
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and Ecclesiastes 3 which we know he enjoyed.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
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@Victory is it OK to use Jewish prayers and writings? We think this is the Kaddish of the mourner?

Blessed, praised and glorified, exalted and extolled and honoured, magnified and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be he; though he be high above all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; and say ye, Amen.
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and Gerard Manley Hopkins' Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
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And Yeats' An Irish Airman Forsees His Death
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I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

And Jeremiah 1 5

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
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So sorry to hear about the loss of your friend.
group_hug.gif
 
Frideswide said:
My BFF and I are arranging the funeral of the man who was the third person in our little triumvirate. It was suicide. I don't think I need to detail my distress. I am hoping that that y'all can help with suggestions and ideas. Expressing that you too are sad, that you will never meet this vibrant creative, caring and endlessly curious person would be very helpful to me. That and tolerance for my fragility at the moment if I get something wrong.

He had no spiritual faith and he wanted one. He tried many things but none of them clicked. BFF has no faithy but it doesn't bother her. I'm an Old Catholic Christian. Masses are being said for him in case his soul wants to avail itself of a ladder, signpost or whatever. Everything has been left to us, his blood family cut out entirely. (His blood mother, for example, believed that autism meant he was cursed and tried to exorcise him when he was a child in various ways, including beating and fire. The attitude continued as an adult)

The DPF says that we should have charge of the body once it is released. The police are ignoring this and have given keys to the property to the blood family and told them they are entitled to take the corpse.

BFF and I are trying to find words to say or read. With or without the body. The format is likely to be about 30 people in a circle facing each other, each person reading/saying something if the can, either their own or our suggestions. If somene cannot speak the they will pass their chosen words to someone who can, probable me.

So far we have these. But we need more, for all tastes, to help people who find communication difficult at the best of times, and this is not the best of times. Please contribute something if you can. I can explain why each of the ones below has been chosen, if it's not clear.




and Ecclesiastes 3 which we know he enjoyed.


@Victory is it OK to use Jewish prayers and writings? We think this is the Kaddish of the mourner?



and Gerard Manley Hopkins' Pied Beauty
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So sad, this is obviously a difficult time for you, take care.

So We'll Go No More a Roving​

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

 
Here's a bang-up-to-date funeral custom- online memorials.
Usually submitted by phone, prone to interesting typos.

Guardian piece -
Death and typos: my six strange years screening online obituary comments

For six years, I worked at an online memorial company – part of an invisible network of content moderators tasked with reviewing condolence messages, or guestbook entries, attached to obituaries. I left this past February having screened nearly 500,000 comments about the recently deceased.

My main responsibility was to keep a queue system of differently labeled, never-ending condolences safe and sugarcoated. Surprisingly, I was rarely bombarded with violent or pornographic messages. Mostly, I deleted spam.
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It's not all drudgery though -
An apt typo would break up the dark, sloppy tediousness of death work. (A recent favorite: “timbering” loved ones instead of “remembering” them.) Lately, with the freshly bereaved writing condolences on iPhones, sympathy notes are freighted more with autocorrect than grief. For example: “No words to describe this terrible trade gym.” Or: “During this difficult time, hang onto all the find meteorites.”

When I mention this job to others, I’m immediately asked to reveal the most offensive sympathy note I’ve read. Here’s one that’s safe to print in a family publication: “I know it’s last minute, but are you available to come cut the grass at the house today? Mainly the front please”. (And another gem: “Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp”.)
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