As the graphic below illustrates, there are myriad ways to personalize a “goodbye.” Let this circle serve as an idea sparker when working with families dealing with end-of-life issues or helping those who are planning the funeral service of a loved one.
This “Funeral Bill of Rights” was summarized by Robert Burkhardt from the much longer version on the Federal Trade Commission website.
Click here to read the abbreviated version:
Funeral Bill of Rights
Burkhardt is also the author of Rest In Peace: The Insider’s Tips to the Low Cost Less Stress Funeral.
He also publishes the Your Funeral Guy blog.
I’m not sure what to call these “take away” mementos, but in our family we call them “Funeral Favors.”
It started when my 92-year old grandmother died and I had a lot of time on my hands between her passing and the actual service. She’d outlived any contemporaries and I didn’t imagine she’d have more than 20 people actually attend the small gathering.
Working on two personalized touches really helped me say goodbye to a woman who’d been a profound influence throughout my life.
First, I wrote a little vignette about how grandmother had gotten her name. It was a funny story, one that even my brother didn’t know. I didn’t want to be the only memory-keeper, so sharing it with those who came to pay their respects seemed like a smart way to share the memory.
Once you have a short story written, it can fit onto one page and be folded in quarters to make a little booklet that looks like this before printing:
Click HERE to read the finished story
The other funeral favor I made would have tickled my grandmother to pieces. I compiled a CD of her favorite toe-tapping gospel tunes. We played it at her small service, but I also made a copy of the CD for everyone to take home.
Fair Warning: It’s not exactly kosher to make a CD, since we didn’t pay royalties on the music. Grandmother owned all the original music so I hope Andy Griffith, the Statler Brothers, Emmy Lou Harris and the Hee Haw Gang won’t mind.
Here are some other ideas for funeral favors:
Memorial Seed Packets
If your loved one was an avid gardener, nature-lover, arranger-of-flowers or otherwise associated with blooming things, you could prepare special seed packets for guests to take with them and plant in the spring.
Because this can be time consuming and requires a bit of arts-and-crafts talent, there are other ways to commemorate a love of nature that would personalize the send-off without being as labor-intensive.
Ideas: A bowl of shells, crystals, feathers, leaves or rocks nicely presented on a table with other special memories with a small sign asking guests to take one home with them.
Best-Loved Recipe / Favorite Food
Loved ones are often associated with a favorite food or well-loved recipe.
A nice take-away gift is a copy of that recipe (especially if in their own handwriting) or even the makings of the dish with the recipe attached.
And if not a recipe, sometimes you can think of THE food that instantly comes to mind when you think of your loved one. Maybe it’s beef jerky, BBQ ribs, Cheetos, Bazooka bubble gum, butter pecan ice cream or carrot cake … you get the idea. If appropriate, think about serving that dish at the reception or putting a take-away portion on a table for guests to pick up on their way out of the service.
Other Symbolic Remembrances
This is where family members can share favorite memories to come up with something symbolic to share with guests.
Maybe your loved one was an avid fisherman. Give everyone a lure.
Maybe they were a sports fan or collector. Give everyone a baseball card.
Maybe they were a golfer. Golf balls can be a fun memento.
What funeral favor ideas would fit for you? Leave your suggestions in the comments area.
The stories you record and/or write will become a legacy for your children and grand-children. Take the time to weave them together into a flowing narrative.
Use the best printing and binding materials you can afford and your auto-biography will last for generations.
There are many online publishing options for producing a hard or soft-cover book. When evaluating which one is the right one for your project, consider how much wear and tear the book will get.
If it will be mostly on a bookshelf, you can often get away with books that are glued together (like Snapfish and those prepared at the copy centers of office supply stores. But if you think there will be lots of handling and reading, get books that offer library-quality binding.
Here are just a few to check out:
www.blurb.com (this is my personal favorite with the best prices overall)
http://memorypress.familylearn.com/funeral
www.heritagemakers.com
http://www.mixbook.com
http://mypublisher.com/
http://www.lulu.com/
http://www.snapfish.com (not built to last for generations and lots of handling)
And if you are a Mac owner, check out the iPhoto Book options.
A remembrance project can become a treasured family heirloom – even those created long after a loved one has died.
While clearing out his grandmother’s attic, a client of mine found 15 audio cassettes and about 60 hand-written letters sent by his father while he was in Vietnam in 1971-1972. His father died in 1996 at age 65 after a brief battle with lung cancer. I was hired to digitize the audio and take all the elements and create something special he could share with his children who never met their grandpa.
Here is the cover we used on the 15-CD album:
I also produced a hard-cover book with all the letters. The client and his wife were deeply moved and look forward to sharing the voice and heart of this man with their children in the coming months and years.
What treasures for remembrance tributes are waiting to be discovered in your attic?
Katherine Misegades knew that in her mother’s later years shortly before she died, her mother had recorded her childhood memories onto six audio tapes. Katherine knew where the tapes were, but she just didn’t know what to do with these treasures.
Recently, she had a friend transcribe the stories transcribed and digitize the audio on the cassette tapes so she could create an online ”story web” as a remembrance to her Mama.
She used a free Wordpress.com site to give new life to her ”Mama’s” words, combining vintage family photos with the text of the story and a link at the bottom of each story where you can click and listen to her mother’s re-telling of the story.
The result is a wonderful first-person tribute to her mother. Anyone can visit the online remembrance, but it is also a very effective way for family members of every generation scattered all over the world to connect, reminisce and share their memories with Mama’s children.
Here’s a sample of what the daughter did:
Whatever your age, telling the stories of your life is important.
So sit back. Relax …
Let these sample questions jog your memory about stories and experiences from your past.
Skim through the sample questions and begin to reminisce about old times, people and places.
Your Ancestors
Do you know where your mother’s mother was born?
Do you know her name?
What kind of person was your grandmother?
What did she look like?
Did she work outside of the house?
What were some of her best qualities?
Her worst qualities?
Now, work through these same questions for your mother’s father, father’s mother and father’s father.
What did your mother’s father do for a living?
Are you like your grandparents in any way?
Tell a story about any of your grandparents that would characterize them? Perhaps something they did, or the way they reacted to something that happened?
Your Parents
Did your mother ever tell you any stories about when she was growing up?
Do you think that you inherited any of your mother’s qualities? Which ones?
Did your father have any brothers or sisters? Describe them.
How would your father’s friends describe him?
What did your parents do for fun?
Childhood and Teen Years
Where were you born?
Where did you grow up?
Do you know the reasons your parents gave you your name?
Did you have any hobbies as a child? What were they?
Describe a typical summer day when you were 8 years old.
What was your greatest childhood adventure?
Your family
How did you fit into the family (oldest, middle, youngest)?
What do you remember most about your aunts and uncles?
What holiday traditions did your family have?
Did your family go on any vacations?
Tell a story about a memorable vacation.
Were you raised in a religious manner?
How did this affect the way you are today?
Your Teenage Years
Describe your first car.
Who were your closest friends? What did you do together?
Did you have any hobbies? What were they?
Did you date as a teenager? Tell a story about one of your dates.
Tell me about your childhood chores around the house.
Was there one chore that was your least favorite?
Did you get an allowance? Were you a “saver” or a “spender?”
Describe your high school experience.
What was your favorite subject? Your least favorite?
What was something you loved to do as a teen that you wouldn’t do today?
Marriage and Family
Getting Married
Tell me about the first time you met your spouse. How old were you?
How did you become engaged?
Describe the wedding.
What is one memorable story about your honeymoon?
Raising a Family
How many children did you have?
Tell a story about each child that helps to illustrate their personality.
Do any of your children remind you of yourself? Which ones and why?
Describe the house and the neighborhood where you lived when your children were small.
What were the funniest things your kid(s) ever did as a child/children?
Describe your feelings when your last child moved out of the house.
Career
Did you work outside the home?
Tell your major career changes.
Summing it Up
What do you feel are your best personality traits? The worst?
What were the major turning points in your life?
Describe the nicest thing you’ve ever done anonymously.
One of the nicest mementos is a favorite poem, scripture verse, quotation or excerpt from a favorite book. In addition to sharing an intimate memory, a well-crafted piece can be quickly reproduced in large numbers at an affordable price so that every guest receives a copy with very little labor or time once the master is produced.
My father’s favorite poem was Desiderata. It experienced quite a renaissance in the late 60s and early 70s, though the poem was actually written in 1927. My dad bought dozens of posters of the poem after he returned from Vietnam and sent it to people he loved. It wasn’t until 2009 that my brother and I were reminded of this. Had we remembered his fondness for the poem sooner, we would surely have made copies of it to give to the nearly 100 people who attended his service at Arlington Cemetery.
Since we missed that chance, I’ll share with the class now. The words in Desiderata are as relevant today as they were in 1971 when they first grabbed my dad’s heartstrings.
While you’re thinking about it, take a few minutes to write down a few of your favorites – Poems, quotations, books, movies, flowers, dessert, foods, verses of scripture, etc. Put in a place where it can be found when your time comes. Your family will love knowing these things and they can become fodder for personalizing your service.
The Importance of Writing Sympathy Notes
This is from The Art of Manliness and well worth reading the full text. Here is an excerpt of what you’ll find there:
Of all the letters you will write during your life, the sympathy note is arguably the hardest to pen. It can be very difficult to find the right words, or any words really, to say. We worry about saying the wrong thing , or we feel awkward talking about such a serious matter. It’s thus often tempting not to say anything at all. We tell ourselves that the person knows we love and support them anyway.
And they probably do. But everyone would rather hear it from you themselves. They want a tangible reminder that you are thinking about them during their hard time. Your words can bring a brief, but very real moment of comfort.
How to Write a Sympathy Note
Use nice stationery. Casual notes can be written on whatever is handy. But the sympathy note requires something nicer. Death is the gravest of matters and your medium should reflect your respect for the weight of the situation.
Keep it short and simple. A lot of men can’t get started writing because they think they have to come up with something deep and philosophical about death, dying, and hope. While the bad news is that there’s nothing you can write to take away a person’s pain, the good news is that the grieving friend knows this just as well as you do. They’re not expecting something profound. They just want to know that you’re thinking of them and feeling for them.
Start off by expressing your sadness at hearing about the death. “I was so sorry to hear about the death of your father.”
Share a memory. There’s not much you can do to alleviate someone’s grief, but sharing a memory of the deceased person comes close. It gives the person a few moments to laugh and remember. And it warms their heart to know that others have special memories of their loved one that they carry with them. Share some of the special qualities and favorite memories about the deceased.
If you didn’t know the person your friend lost, then skip this step. If your friend lost a baby, tell them that you understand that even though your friend never got to meet their child, they’re grieving over the loss of the future they’ve been dreaming about with him or her.
Don’t try to explain the loss. If you’re a religious person, don’t offer platitudes like “This is God’s plan,” or “This is God’s will.” This might be something the person comes to believe in the future, but in the midst of their grief, the idea of God snatching their loved one from the earth is liable to piss them off. I knew a guy who lost his wife in a car accident, leaving him to raise his 5 young children alone. He said to me, “If I hear one more person say, ‘God needed her more in heaven,’ I’m going to knock them out.”
Don’t compare your loss with theirs. This is especially true if you haven’t experienced the exact same thing. If their child has died, don’t tell them how you know what they’re going through because your dog just expired last week. You’ll come off as callous and tick them off. If you have experienced a similar loss, a reference to your ability to truly sympathize is appropriate. But don’t go on and on about how you felt during that time; the focus should remain on the other person.
Show your solidarity. Let them know that you’re thinking and praying for them. If you or your friend or family member is not religious and a reference to prayer would not be appropriate, simply say, “My heart and thoughts go out to you during this difficult time.”
Close by offering your help. Let the person know that if there is anything you can do for them or if they ever want to talk or hang out, to please let you know.
To read the full text: http://artofmanliness.com/2009/09/18/the-art-of-letter-writing-the-sympathy-note/
Adding personal touches to the funeral service or memorial is a wonderful way to customize the send-off. You want to create an experience that reflects the individuality of the person who is being honored.
What Were Their Personal Favorites?
Ideally, the service can be respectful but, at the same time, reflect the personality of the deceased. Ask yourself: What is the tone they would want the service to have?
If a loved one hasn’t left instructions on what they want, you’ll want to get as much into their head and heart as possible. Here are a few areas to consider through their eyes:
Where to hold the service?
Places of worship — church, temple, mosque, synagogue, catherdral, etc.)
Safe/familiar places — their home, a friend’s home, parents’ home, rooftop, garden, ballpark, playground, pier, bowling alley, library, barn, health club, Rotary Club, backyard …
Places that uplift and have sentimental value — the beach, state park, lake, river, mountaintop, botanical garden, country road, pasture, forest, an island, a bridge …
Other spots that would hold symbolic or sentimental value – zoo, boat, aquarium, special place on a university campus, casino, vineyard, firehouse, amusement park, restaurant, museum, fountain …
And you may want to include some sort of personal touch at the closing of the service. This can be a simple, special memento guests could carry home with them. These “funeral favors” could also be distributed at the visitation instead of at the funeral service.
Another closing touch that is extremely personal would be playing a video compilation of photos and home movies; favorite people; favorite places; favorite TV shows, books and movies – much like a life collage set to favorite music.
If you are looking for ideas to personalize a funeral service, here are some to get you thinking out-of-the-box. While they may not be your cup of tea, you can be sure that the person who was in the spotlight at each of these funerals knew their service was planned and carried out with love and LOTS of personalization. To each his own.
Mother and Child Buried Together
StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. They facilitate family members and/or friends interviewing one another vs. hiring a personal historian to conduct the oral histories.
You can listen to a new interview every Friday morning on NPR radio. And they’ve posted some great questions to get you started if you’re ready to preserve some of your own family history.
Click HERE to get a printable list
If you enjoy listening to family stories, you can listen to them online. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find. Listening to other folks’ family stories can give you ideas on how to conduct interviews with your loved ones.
The StoryCorps project has recorded more than 50,000 conversations in all 50 states. Find lots of them here: http://www.storycorps.org/listen
Powered by FireStats