A funny....... but still no accreditation

Forgive me bloggers, for I have sinned - it's been over a month since my last confession.

Regular readers (I live in hope) will know that I was feeling very jaded after my last ceremony, and concerned about my first live one.

Unfortunately, my first live one became too ill to have a meaningful meeting, so I just did the usual family visit after she'd died. Less than 48 hours after she'd died.

But before I got to that I had ceremony no 10. Not my first suicide, but my youngest - a 29 year old man. In a way, I came riding in like the cavalry because a different funeral director had tried to force a vicar on them, who just didn't listen to "we don't want a religious funeral". It made me really angry on behalf of the funeral profession - these people have been through enough through the death of their son; the last thing they needed was further distress.

As expected, it was a full to bursting ceremony (which makes it all the more poignant, as the young man in question obviously didn't feel that he could reach out to any of them, despite their desire to help him) and very emotional.

My 11th ceremony was interesting from a "learning about myself" point of view. The deceased was a man who, according to his family, wanted as little fuss as possible. They were lovely people, but could go off at tangents, so the family visit went on for 2 1/2 hours. The ceremony was a "who would like to come up and speak" job (the celebrant's worst nightmare) and so it felt a bit chaotic, but for me, the hardest part was keeping my patience with the chief mourners. They turned the whole thing into a stage show and I found myself thinking "I could swing for you, lady". It was a test of my professionalism that I didn't just think "oh, sod it" and go through the motions to get to the end.

After much diary changes, I finally got assess for accreditation and was lucky, it was a ceremony that went well and didn't have too many complications. The daughter of the deceased was a really nice lady who told me lots of great stories about her Mum, so all I had to do was put them into the ceremony.

I'm still waiting for the accreditation (I believe that there are committees involved), and when that's happened I can get my official business cards and go around the funeral directors again.

Then we came to my live one - the one that affected me the most, as there were so many resonances with my Mum's death (same name, etc). After the ceremony, I actually had a tear, which is not something I'm proud of, but I held it together for the ceremony, which is all that matters.

So what's the funny? Well, I may have already warned you that I have a black sense of humour, but I wish to be rewarded for my restraint.

"After her stroke Mum lost her speech.

But she never complained....."