My Funeral Directing.
I have this thing, which generally isn't a big problem but is still a thing and sometimes it becomes troublesome or a problem but generally it's over small stuff that people always say you shouldn't sweat anyway so you feel kind of embarassed about the thing and don't mention it in public... but what the hell.
I have a tendancy to plan. I'm not sure when it arrived but it did and I have it now. Which isn't physically painful but isn't always easy to work around. Thus, several months ago, when I wrote the post about my parents being dead I planned to write one about how much easier it was to be my mother's funeral director than pretty much everyone involved seemed to believe. And then I didn't. I got depressed. My health issues did what can pretty well be expected of chronic illnesses and misbehaved. I found myself with a bunch of things to do beyond the funeral, and... no centre, audience, care-giver, or purpose. Plus there's all the expectations of others that if you nolonger have an old-person to look after your life will very quickly become much easier to live... and you realise that if you start writing a post you will say all these things and maybe you shouldn't and the longer you leave it the more certain you are that you shouldn't.
Only by this point you have a thing you planned to do. And anytime you think of talking about something else on lj you feel that you can't until you've done the post you haven't done. And for that you're waiting for a good day, or inspiration, or a day when you haven't binge-drunk a DVD box-set, crying all the way through the last episode.
It's a thing. I have it. No fuss. It's not the serious end of stuff I have :)
....
My mother wanted a 'cardboard box funeral'. By the end she wanted a green burial but for reasons to do with my eldest brother she didn't change her will and in that she'd opted for cremation. She wanted to be buried for as little money and environmental impact as possible either way. Which was just as well because having found only one nice green buriul site we also discovered it was an hour's drive away and nowhere near anywhere we'd ever spent a day out even. It seemed very peaceful but also lonely. So we also opted for cremation.
The only good thing about my mother dying in hospital was that they held on to the body for free. (The nursing home where my father died waited less than an hour after notifying us of his death to ring again and ask when the funeral director would be coming for the body - this at 10pm on a friday night). When we went to collect the papers from the hospital - death certificate etc - so we could register the death, the woman was very surprised by my wanting to run the funeral but agreed it was an option. I could, she supposed, always change my mind later, because the forms were hard to fill in.
Registering the death was easy and pleasant. The registrar was a lovely and helpful woman.
I bought a carboard coffin online and clearly they didn't get very many private buyers - tip here, buy bigger than you think you need. Dead people weight a lot and they come out of the morgue much like partly frozen meat... too stiff to really reposition with grace. I bought it brown because that was the cheapest and bigger than I thought I needed because of grave goods, and in the end it was only just wide enough. They have pre-decorated ones but they really put me in mind of gift boxes and... I figured even plain brown would be better. As it happens coffins are bigger than you imagine from the TV... and really well packed... so I had a wonderful struggle trying to make the narrow hallway passable. Seriously, I had the door open while I tried to undo the outer cardboard box.
Then I began decorating it. My mother had just started colouring in - she'd been lacking pastimes and an Art Therapy magazine was being advertised and she liked the idea so... she'd had a couple of sessions colouring in. I'd copier enlarged a tree and she'd filled it in in two colourways and started a third. So the idea she'd had for the trees became the basis of my plans. You can't use oil paint etc for cremations, and hand-colouring all the amount I'd need to cover the coffin was impossible in the time... so I hand coloured multiple pieces and then photocopied the heck out of them. The symbols don't need a lot of explaining... I cut out and glued them over several evenings. Oddly enough it helped me stop spending as much time finding out that you really can find tears running down your face without realising you've started crying. Just tears on you cheeks, running to your chin.
http://katallen.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/2136/12728
http://katallen.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/2136/12846
http://katallen.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/2136/13070
http://katallen.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/2136/12293
In the mean time I went to the crematorium to book a date (not entirely easy since although there was a leaflet explaining that Harrogate Council supports DIY funerals no one seemed to know how to cope with that apart from handing out the leaflet) In the end I moved the booking because I discovered that getting the yellow form signed would be a problem. It was the doctor's statement and required two signatures. Although the papers made it clear my GP could do this, having taken the papers, they decided that they couldn't, but took more than 24 hours to so decide. In the end I rang the morgue, who arranged for two hospital doctors (who also hadn't been present at her death) to sign the form - for a surprisingly large fee. But I did get the papers in on time to the crematorium and that was pretty much that.
There is a section about metal/plastic joints and whether you want them returned or recycled - I went with recycled. Mother never really spoke of them as being a part of her.
We collected my mother's body. It was not hard but again those involved were surprised. We were only surprised by how heavy dead weight is. because really it is very very heavy. The hardest part was getting the filled coffin back into the house (and out again the next day)
The nurses hadn't taken off all the surgical tape. I peeled off that, the name tags, cut off the hospital gown, and made her comfortable. Added in copies of family photos, snack items, a few other things - took a lock of hair. It was... good. Meaningful. For just that night it felt as though she was home.
I picked some wallflowers and a last hyacinth flower from the garden. Freesias and lilies and chrysanthemums from M&S and a florist (but the reduced price ones as she'd have wanted). I'd ordered CDs of two songs she liked (and all the time wished I'd taken the time to get them before she died) and ripped them for the service. Ordered a trolley to help move the coffin from the car to the chapel. Made an order of service - wrote a few words to say - two poems...
My brother had volunteered to read the last but broke down and I had to finish it for him. Crying is good at a funeral.
It was not hard. It helped a lot to be busy... after the funeral I missed having that to do... but wasn't as much of a basket-case as I'd been becoming. In the end it cost a fair bit under £1500 (it would have been nearer to £1000 without the doctor's fees)
The crematorium staff were surprised because the service didn't run over (a little under time) - and it is always nice to be told you've done good and to feel that maybe the next person who wants to act as funeral director will have the advantage of their experience of me.
Despite all the negativity you'll face, if you are able to fill in fairly straight-foward forms and feel better having something you have to do today - and if you want a chance to say goodbye that includes grave goods and poems that don't sound like they're from Hallmark cards. If you're a little more complicated than Christian etc go for it.
I have a thing. This is not now a part of thinginess.