We were provided thirty pages of poems and readings in my funeral celebrant training. The deathling in me sat down with my highlighter, ready to add some new gems to my repertoire. I have lots of go-to quotes and poems as-is, and was eager for more. To my surprise, I made it through about twenty pages before I even took the cap off of my highlighter, having finally found a reading worth (in my opinion) saving. I only found one other after that.
In checking-in with myself as to why I was so off-put by so many of the readings, what rang through was that it was because there was an undercurrent of, “shed not a tear,” “I am not gone,” and, “life goes on.”
I will admit that after many pages of content that didn’t resonate, I was (at some point) reading through a lens of bias and criticism. I have since gone back and read many of the works again, and some aren’t as off-putting to me as I originally felt like they were. That being said, I often put myself into the position of the folks sitting at a funeral being presented with sentiments of “don’t cry” and “move on” and what that feels like for them. Especially those who are deep in grief.
These sentiments grate on me. I know that not everything that gets shared during times of loss will be everyone’s cup of tea. I understand that a lot of people don’t want folks sitting around in black and crying at their funeral. While I fully support “celebrations” of life, and requests of “have a party when I’m gone,” my concern is that it’s as if we are saying, “grief doesn’t have a place at this table.” It’s both/and for me.
Saying that we shouldn’t be sad when someone dies, is a disservice at best, and grief-stifling at worst. As a celebrant, I welcome fun-loving memories, humor, and humility. I love to weave that throughout my services. I want people to feel open to a good ugly-cry, while laughing through the snot and tears. It’s about finding the balance. That is my art and craft.
One way of looking at the way we say “I don’t want you to cry for me” is that it essentially devalues the love that your people had for you, and the holes left in their hearts in your absence.* I strive to hold space for both the tears, and the laughter. The joy and the pain.
I’ve been to celebrations of life where I felt like I couldn’t, or shouldn’t cry. Sure, I could reserve my tears for private moments and save face for the celebration, but part of the value of gathering in community is to feel the waves of emotion, together.
To have someone to hug and hold. To have someone reflect back to us that, yes, this sucks. Majorly.
Of course we can laugh. Of course we can joke.
But I want there to be space for the tears, too, lest we not stuff grief down where, as Martin Prechtel says, it petrifies.
Purge, my dears.
Let that grief move.
*not all grief=love
–
Funeral Blues by W.H Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.