Added to this, my colleague and mentor (SWMBO) locally was also unwell. She is now making a full recovery, which I am delighted about, but I would be lying if I didn't confess that I do want some of her workload.
This isn't as mercenary as it sounds; she has been saying that she is very busy and has been finding it a little too much, so I will happily relieve her of some of the burden, but there's the rub. Imagine if you will the following telephone conversation:
Funeral Director: Hello SWMBO - are you free on the 15th?
Celebrant (thinking, "I'd really rather not"): No, I'm afraid I'm busy that day. However, may I suggest that you try my friend and colleague X. Piry? She's very good.
Funeral Director: Thank you, SWMBO, I'll take the number.
But do they then call? This is the question. To be honest, if I was the FD, I'm not sure I would. Do I chose someone on a recommendation, or do I go with (for example) the local registrar, who I've worked with once or twice before, and although it's not exactly what the family wanted, it's a non-religious ceremony and they'll do a reasonable job?
It takes a while to build up one's practice as a celebrant and a lot of that is leg work. So, knowing that my colleague was unwell, I took myself around to her local Funeral Directors and introduced myself. All I did was pop in, hand over a letter which my contact details, and say "I know that you usually use SWMBO, but if ever she's unavailable, I'd be very grateful if you would consider me in her place." I was going for non-aggressive - I hope it didn't come across as non-bothered.
I did pick up a bit of her work and I believe that with one FD at least I'm now their second choice for non-religious funerals. Another FD appeared to be very impressed with one of my ceremonies and said that he will definitely use me again. I do hope so.
Sorry, this post has very little to do with the care of the bereaved, writing a fitting tribute to the deceased and being compassionate to all concerned. But that's it - I can't do any of those things if I don't get the calls from the funeral directors!
However, I have also started doing weddings. A friend of mine wants me to do her wedding, so I've had the first meeting with her and her fiance. It went well (I took cake, that always helps) and they said that I was very reassuring. This is good, but of course in my, neurotic head, that simply means that they're being nice because we're friends and actually I was rubbish.
I've also visited another couple (but they seem to be seeing every celebrant in the region, so I don't know what will happen with them) and quoted for other weddings. This has been a learning curve. Lesson number one being that many people don't have the manners to reply.
It's been a mixed bag of funerals. My last one was very emotional, a young woman, a long illness, a lovely family, a packed crematorium. My next one, will be the opposite, an old lady, an unexpected death and a husband who couldn't even tell you anything about her life before she met him. The phrase "It's not about you, love" was in my head quite a lot, but I am a professional. To be fair, the man seemed genuinely upset, but on the way home, all I could think of was the John Donne poem:
I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved ? Were we not weaned till then ?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly ?
This lady could have sucked on country pleasures, or anything else for that matter; her husband didn't seem interested enough to find out. It made me wonder - how did he know that he wanted to marry her, if he knew so little about her? The marriage was obviously a success, and long-lasting, but how did he know it was going to be?
People fascinate me.
1 comment:
Ah-ha, Expiry, you raise a number of points.
First, the undertakers -- or funeral directors as we call them when we want them to give us some work. They depend on our dependency on them. They like to have everyone in thrall -- bearers, florists, celebrants... Their referral of a family to you is in their gift. They have yet to come to understand something very important: a good celebrant can make them look good - but, no matter haw badly they may ever mess up, they will never be able to make us look bad. In certain dark moods it can look to us as if the tail is wagging the dog.
As to the chap who clammed up, it may simply have been that he didn't want to say any more to a stranger. No one can clam like a man. It's this ticklish thing about whether we are doing our job or not minding our own business. It's possible that he felt you had encroached on an area of intimacy?
I don't know. But don't be dismayed: it happens! Families are very private places, marriages even more so.
Perhaps!
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