An odd day....

.... and largely unsatisfactory, but then things change...

I did ceremony number 9 today, and for this one I hadn't been able to do a family visit, as the family are all over the country.

I got very little information about the deceased; I felt I hadn't got a handle on her at all, so this ceremony lasted about 15 minutes.

I know, I know, but honestly, I put in 2 poems (at least three verses each) and 4 readings, what else could I do that wasn't just padding?

So this felt very unsatisfactory.

Then I thought I'd go out selling myself again. I went to a small town nearby, but couldn't find the Funeral Directors. Never mind, I thought, I'll do that another time - there were a couple of village FDs I was looking for, so despite the fact that the weather was disgusting, I thought I'd keep on.

I couldn't find the second one, either. This village has only got one street, but I'll be buggered if I could find the place. That's the problem with house names instead of numbers, I guess.

When I got to the next village I wanted, I realised that I had my mobile and a list of phone numbers with me. I could have rung them!!!!!

Never mind, I found the third and left my leaflets with a very nice lady.

On my way back home (feeling mightily jaded by this time), it occurred to me that there's another small town about 6 miles from where I live that I hadn't been a-touting in, so I stopped off.

I had a long conversation with another very nice lady, who doesn't arrange funerals herself, but was interested in what I do, and agreed to hand out my leaflets if appropriate.

I then went to the other FD in the town, and realising that they were part of the co-op, I could reassure him that I had done work for one of the other local offices, so he seemed almost receptive.

Then when I got home, there was a message on the answerphone - I've got my first live one.

There is a lady at the local hospice who has been given a few weeks to live, and wants a humanist ceremony. I'm currently waiting for a call back from her husband, who wants reassuring that there will be no tree-hugging or talking to fairies, and I will go and meet the lady and her husband (probably at the hospice) to discuss their funeral.

It's my first "living funeral", and my biggest fear is that memories of my Mum will come crashing in, and I'll fall apart - I'm crying now as I write this.

But I've come to a conclusion - crying while typing is fine. As long as I don't dissolve either at the family visit or during the ceremony - that would be "a bad thing".

More details to follow, when there are some to tell.

First family visits

Well, it's 9 o'clock on a sunday morning, and I've been writing since 7:30, doing the two tributes from my family visits on Friday.

Yes, count 'em, two.

Interesting family dynamics, as I suspected, at the first one. I'd been told some of the negative stuff about the deceased during a phone call with her daughter. None of this came out at the meeting, so I was happy to ignore the bad stuff.

Then, yesterday morning (just as I was about to go out - note to self- use answerphone more) the same daughter rang to tell me tales of depression, marital conflict, family dysfunction and the like. Oh joy, so not only was I late meeting my friend, but I had to listen to someone complaining about her nearest and dearest! I've got family of my own if I want to hear whinging! I've also been left with the problem of what do I put in my script. The tribute should be accurate, but I don't think it hurts to have a few euphemisms. A carefully worded "they went through the ups and downs that all marriages experience" should hopefully be recognisable to all who knew her, without telling the world that they rowed a lot.

My second visit was to a lady who is one of life's philosophers. She's obviously well read and had very kindly written out a precis of her mother's life for me, so I had a lot of material to use for the tribute. I'm convinced that I once worked with the deceased, during a not particularly glittering point in my career (the non-glittering was entirely my own doing, nothing to do with the deceased or her colleagues). I feel happier about this tribute, but conscious that I've only met one of the descendants, and must be careful to include the other.

Between family visits, I popped in to visit the FD I'd previously met (nice lady), and another that I hadn't had dealings with. Timing was on my side, as the funeral arranger had just met a family who wanted a humanist officiant. What a result! So I've got another family visit Tuesday evening.

Bring them on.

Busy!

So there I was, thinking that I was going to have to re-write my Grandfather's funeral script for my homework exercise, and it's all gone mad!

Thursday was my second gatecrash, and my first ever burial. It went really well, and lots of people complemented my mentor on the service.

Then on Friday (yesterday) I had my first family visit. I thought that SWMBO had already told them I was coming, but she'd not had the chance, so I did feel that I was "doorstepping" them a bit, but they were terribly nice about it, and made tea and everything.

At the moment the good folks are shocked, fairly angry, and still looking for some answers from the health care professionals, so it wasn't a particularly teary visit, which from a purely selfish point of view was probably a good thing for my first one.

I can understand the frustration of wanting to know answers, but one of the family members said "we just want to know that we did everything that we could." I nodded politely, but wondered about this. In the unlikely event that somebody told them that they could have done more, how will that leave them feeling? Death leaves unanswered questions, and I'm not going to pretend I'm all zen about it, and happy to accept, but the danger with asking questions is in finding the answers. Can you cope with them being what you don't want to hear? Sometimes ignorance is bliss after all.

But anyhoo, I wrote pages of notes, and have spent this afternoon typing my script. It's too long (by at least 500 words), but I'm going to leave it overnight and then edit it down tomorrow, as well as read it aloud to myself (I've already warned DH that this could happen, so that he doesn't think I've gone completely mad) to check the timing.

While I was putting this together this avo, SWMBO rang to say that there was another family meeting on Monday, about 20 miles away from where I live, so for the third day running I'm going to have to leave work early. I'll explain it all to my boss on Monday morning, and I'm sure she'll be okay with it, but my absences are becoming a bit obvious.

Actually, Monday might become interesting for another reason. Friday's are mufti days at our office, and so I wore my jeans to work, but then nipped into the ladies as I left, and changed into a skirt etc. On my way out, one of my colleagues was coming back from lunch. I saw her look my up and down, and I feel that she's a person who likes to know what's going on, and is not averse to being indiscreet in her curiosity. I wonder how many people will think I was going for an interview!

This is the problem with having to keep my flexible hours a bit discreet, otherwise I'd just tell everybody, and that would be it. Still, we'll see what the next few weeks brings!