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Going Out With a Bang
Professional Funeral Celebrants Claim They Are
Setting New Trend
Aug. 24, 2004 – Want to go out with a bang? Maybe
have your favorite candy passed around at your funeral. You can have
about any funeral celebration you want from a certified “Celebrant.”
At the time of death, every life should be
celebrated, according to a news release by In-Sight Institute, which has
certified more than 500 Celebrants.
That is the conviction driving a growing trend,
they say. This trend is the use of trained celebrants to plan and
conduct personalized funeral and memorial services, especially when the
deceased was not religious or had no relationship with a local minister.
“I know my work is really important. Families do
want the life celebrated,” said Linda Haddon, a “Celebrant” who leads
approximately four services per week, working with eight funeral homes
around Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash.
Haddon and five other certified Celebrants
described their experiences in learning about the deceased and working
with the family to plan and conduct a service that captures the essence
of the life being celebrated. The use of celebrants is common in
Australia and New Zealand where church attendance rates are low and
cremation rates, high, says the news release.
Doug Manning, a former Baptist minister who now
heads In-Sight Institute, a division of In-Sight Books, in Oklahoma
City, claims to have introduced the concept in the U.S. and Canada by
offering three-day training sessions and a certification process. To
date, more than 500 Celebrants have been certified. The largest number
of trained Celebrants in North America practice in the Pacific
Northwest.
“Celebrants come from diverse business backgrounds.
What they have in common is a love for people, an intuitive ability to
listen, skill in recording and telling life stories and a commitment to
making each service unique,” they report.
After 22 years in the death care industry,
including a stint with the largest casket manufacturer, Haddon decided
she wanted more personal contact with people and elected to make being a
celebrant “my life’s work.” She had completed the training in 1999 but
just “dabbled in it” for two years.
Only about 20 percent of the population in her area
attends church, and she witnessed families with no church relationship
falling through the cracks when someone died. Not knowing how to go
about planning a service they opted for what she termed “box and burn,”
cremation and no service.
“It is my goal that everyone in the room knows the
deceased person better at the end of the service,” said Haddon, who also
heads the Care Foundation, a non-profit involved in educational programs
for people working in death care.
Haddon has led services in difficult circumstances,
including suicides.
“In a suicide situation, what I tell the audience
is we’re here to celebrate the whole life. Let us stay focused on all
the things they did throughout their life.”
Bob Huskey, who has conducted 170 services since
completing training in November 2001, owns a convenience store and a car
wash in Hood River, Ore. Before that, he worked 18 years for the
telephone company.
“I can describe myself as an individual with a big
heart,” Huskey said. “I get a lot of satisfaction from making people
happy.”
When Huskey receives a call from Anderson Tribute
Center, the funeral home he works with, he immediately contacts the
family to set up a meeting, preferably at their home. He finds them
“sometimes shocked that I don’t want them to come to the funeral home.”
He arranges a time “when I can get the most family
members. I make it a habit never to wear my watch.”
In a session that may last from one to four hours,
Huskey uses a questionnaire adapted from Manning’s training to learn
about the past of the deceased, important things the person stood for
and names of good friends to contact.
“We tell stories and reminisce. I call it a heck of
a therapy session,” he said.
Huskey and other Celebrants also talk with the
family about music, items for a memory table, the order and location of
the service and the possible use of a ritual such as lighting candles.
Only about 10 percent of families who use Huskey’s
service have a church affiliation. However, he has occasionally worked
with pastors on services and has found their perspectives “blend very
well.”
Huskey is convinced that some families, especially
those with no religious background, would choose to have no service if
the Celebrant option were not available.
“They love it when we say we’re going to celebrate
what was important to this person. People are not bored with a
celebration of life.”
Bud Strawn, a retiree in St. Petersburg, Fla.,
completed Celebrant training in January 2004 and has conducted seven
services to date through Anderson-McQueen Funeral Home.
Strawn also has prepared two eulogies at the
request of family members of persons with terminal illnesses. After
working closely with a wife on her husband’s service, Strawn read the
eulogy to her. She then shared it with her husband who termed Strawn’s
efforts “a winner.”
The man will be cremated in Florida, his ashes will
be buried in Detroit and someone else will read Strawn’s tribute. The
wife also hopes to use the University of Michigan fight song at her
husband’s service.
Strawn begins family meetings with an open-ended
request to tell him about the person who has died. While the first few
comments may be generalities, he finds the stories soon begin to flow.
His biggest concern is that “I’ll mess something
up. This is a one-time event for the family.”
Bill McQueen, owner of McQueen-Anderson Funeral
Home, took three funeral directors and three laypeople with him to
Celebrant training which, he noted, “re-energized me professionally.”
He plans to send all of his funeral directors to
the training to understand the celebrant process and to have six or
eight trained laypeople to work with families. While logistics must be
the primary focus of funeral directors, he sees the possibility of using
them, on occasion, to preside, introduce speakers and keep the service
flowing smoothly.
As an example of the interest drawn to the
Celebrant concept, McQueen cited a family who had made pre-paid funeral
arrangements at another funeral home when they read an article in the
St. Petersburg Times about the use of celebrants at McQueen Anderson.
That family “moved their arrangements to us,” McQueen said.
Bonnie Roddis, who operated veterinary clinics for
30 years and recently started a program of taking animals into a
resident center for seniors, has also worked in various capacities with
Foster’s Funeral Home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Since attending
celebrant training two years ago she has led almost 200 services.
“I see being a Celebrant as a calling,” she said.
After obtaining factual information in a family
meeting, Roddis moves to a more open-ended approach and may ask someone,
“Give me five words to describe your dad” or “What was your mom like on
holidays?”
Roddis seeks in family meetings to draw out both
positive and negative things about the person to better understand the
situation.
With a 37-year-old woman who had died of cancer,
Roddis learned she had been an alcoholic but had stopped drinking three
years earlier. At her service, “we focused on what a fabulous thing she
did when she joined AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and helped others at the
same time.”
For the service of a five-year-old who had died of
an aneurysm, Roddis talked about her gift of organs, enabling others to
live.
In a family meeting, a young child told Roddis she
liked the fact that her grandmother could take her teeth out. Roddis’
use of the story drew smiles.
She spends 7-14 hours on each service -- conducting
a family meeting, writing a eulogy, arriving an hour before the service,
conducting the service and attending a reception after the service.
“I’m not making a fortune, but I’m making a
difference,” Roddis said. “I couldn’t have done this job when I was 35.
There is a wisdom that comes to a woman in her 50s.”
Norma Wellwood of Vancouver, British Columbia, was
apprenticing as a funeral director and embalmer when she learned about
the celebrant concept and now works with about eight service providers.
“I focus on working with six to eight families a
month,” Wellwood said. As she hears about the deceased from loved ones,
Wellwood relishes learning “about the incredible lifestyles of people.
We are living among heroes and we are living among saints.”
Wellwood likes to help families identify “what
might be an appropriate ritual to incorporate into the service.”
For a young woman who died after one year of
marriage, Wellwood used a crystal bowl provided by the mother-in-law and
invited guests to silently or verbally offer a blessing or prayer and
float a rose petal in the bowl. For a young man who had a sweet tooth,
guests were given party bags of his favorite candies.
Funeral services conducted by these celebrants have
been held in funeral home chapels, backyards, community centers,
restaurants, churches, a botanical garden, park, beside the ocean, along
a riverbank and on a mountainside.
Celebrants described the pressure they feel to make
each service unique and the fulfillment they receive from hugs, notes
and emails of gratitude.
When a Celebrant receives affirmation for capturing
the essence of an individual, “it makes you want to do it again,” Strawn
said.
For Roddis, the rewards come in “being honored to
speak about these remarkable people. The personal satisfaction is
phenomenal.”
Being a Celebrant “draws on every aspect of my
education and my personality,” Wellwood said. “Every person whose life
we celebrate has lived a life of meaning and value.”
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