Very unorthodox funeral the other day

What a lovely saying of goodbye.
I would like something similar and I think DH wants his ashes spread on the Cumbrian fells so I'm going on the seashore.
My father was an unbeliever and said he wanted to go on the dust cart and make potash. My mother insisted on the full works for him. All rather sombre to start with, she put him in the Methodist plot because she was when he had been Cof E.
The mist and clouds rolled in from the sea the lightning flashed over Criffel and the rains came.
The undertaker who was my dad's friend just looked at me and said: "Well wouldn't W....... have loved this all very Thomas Hardy". He made me smile and see the ironic side of things.
We all came away thinking how dad would have laughed at us standing in a thunderstorm.

What a lovely way to say goodbye, sounds perfect to me. Only yesterday my sister and I were having a conversation about this subject because she received the forms she requested from Pure Cremation. She wants straight to crematorium, no mourners and ashes scattered at her chosen place and I'm swaying that way too.
We are the last of the family so we only have our friends left to attend. My sister isn't religious at all so said they can all head to the pub instead and raise a glass.

I’m just so pleased that everyone can now have the funeral they want. When my mum dies in the eighties I don’t think there was much alternative to a funeral without hymns and prayers, although she was cremated. The vicar who spoke about her life had never met her and although he did his best from what we told him, it felt very impersonal, I hated it and I still wish I had the courage not to go. It’s a pure cremation for me.

It's good that there are various ways to celebrate someone's life when they have died nowadays - especially if the person themselves has had a chance to indicate what they would like.
We were discussing my mum's funeral with the undertaker (about 20 years ago). My mum loved music and dancing (and became a qualified line dance teacher at 75!). We were trying to choose her favourite songs to be played at the service/crematorium and there was one in the back of my mind from her dance classes she ran. We got strange looks from the undertaker when my husband, my sister and I all fell about laughing - having remembered the song was "Stayin' Alive". We didn't choose that, of course, but did have Louis Armstrong's " What a Wonderful World"

#chanting , they were all chanting!!

That does sound just lovely . My father's funeral was a long drawn out Catholic marathon of changing and all the other hypocritical nonsense, I hated it and was the only one dry eyed and clock watching , everyone else seemed to think it was benefitting him in some way- nothing would make him palatable noeven a requiem mass!t

Maywalk, I love your two poems. They must have made the funeral attendees smile!

Sounds good. I wonder why they booked the chapel for the goodbye if they were so determined not to follow tradition. They could have had the deceased delivered to their home and had a party there, which is how one of the neighbours did it, with music and speeches and food. At 4pm the funeral director's Volvo turned up, the coffin was covered and loaded and we waved goodbye.

Definitely planning a non-attended direct cremation for myself. £950 according to the poster in the Co-op window.

My husband passed in 2018 and we had what was considered an ‘unusual’ funeral for him. We had the service at home surrounded by family and friends and we took him on the back of a converted classic pick up for a ‘cruise’ (drive) around some of the local show grounds where we used to show our classic American car. One of his brothers was at first opposed to it and said that it was ‘disrespectful’, however, after the funeral he said to me that it had actually been the best way to celebrate my husband and his life.

I'm religious and will want a religious funeral, but it's nice that there's more choice these days. I've been to a humanist funeral and felt there was something missing, but it was very well done.

My FiL's funeral was in church, with hymns but with his favourite popular songs played before and after, then we repaired to the village hall afterwards for refreshments. We put out photographs to get people talking and we all had a good reminisce, so that part of the day was similar to what Witzend describes.

I had a direct cremation for my husband it was something he would never discuss but did once agree that he would have the same direct cremation that he knew I wanted for myself. I now think maybe it would have been better for a 'usual' type funeral with people in attendance so that it doesn't seem as if he was just swept aside in some anonymous unacknowledged way.

Maywalk, your first poem is the story of my night!

Love the poem. Love the sensible funeral idea.
My husband and I both have living wills stating no ceremony so we will be cremated at a quiet time and you get the ashes eventually. A good friend did this when her husband died and when she got the ashes had a firework and cake party !!! as it was two things he loved.

Well, we held my sister's funeral yesterday, in a church. In the few notes she had left, she said how important her faith was to her and chose some of the music, two hymns and a collect. I met the priest when I went down to where she lived - 143 miles from me - to do the necessary things last month. We then corresponded. He had been to bless her in her nursing home last year when we thought the end was near. My husband and two of her nieces gave readings, I wrote and gave the eulogy, an old schoolfriend read a collect. It was very personal. The casket was made from water hyacinths(!) and we repaired afterwards to the church hall for prosecco and tea. There is still a place for such a service if appropriate to the dead person.

Neither my late husband nor my father had any belief in God. For the former we had a DIY funeral with readings, reminiscences and music followed by a wake in a local restaurant and later that year a big get together with friends and family. For my dad we went a bit more formal with a civil celebrant and then a wake at his club. Both occasions seemed as appropriate as we could wish.

Sounds the best way. I had a humanist service for my parents with a handful of friends at the funeral parlour (my dad was nearly 100) so only a few friends. Thesame woman read about their life stories and I chose a classical pieces. Never went to the crematorium.
I am doing a Pure Cremation for myself, I only have a couple of friends anyway, and my daughter can put my ashes in the rubbish bin for all I care. Once your'e gone, that's it.

Wonderful idea ?

As a ‘countryman’ we had DH’s coffin painted in Barbour green with woodland ferns and greenery on top instead of conventional flowers and had Luther Vandross singing Dance with my Father.
We raised almost £5K in donations, via Just Giving for a local illness related charity and all I’ve heard from them was a Christmas card written in a childish hand thanking me for £300 - which was a cheque I’d forwarded them. A bit disappointed but I hope they’ve made good use of the donation.

sukie

Maywalk your husbands service sounds lovely and how wonderful to donate to the children's hospice in his honor!
Thanks for sharing your clever poems, I could relate and they made me smile.

Many thanks Sukie.
It was a happy wake because that is what he wanted.

SO many guests came to me saying that they had never expected anything like that but they too would like something like it.

As hubby and I were not religious it suited us.

Maywalk your husbands service sounds lovely and how wonderful to donate to the children's hospice in his honor!
Thanks for sharing your clever poems, I could relate and they made me smile.

We went to a Quaker funeral years ago, very similar.

My hubby's funeral in 2016 was not a religious one. He had his big band music played plus the tune "String of Pearls" because he bought me a lovely pearl necklace to wear with my wedding dress when we got married in 1949.
We neither of us want fresh flowers and we said we would like cardboard coffins, which he had. He wanted no one in black or dark clothing and he asked me well before he started with Dementia to have the two poems that I wrote read out at his funeral. It was also arranged that if anyone wanted to put a donation in to the Childrens Hospice kitty instead of buying wreaths and flowers it would be much appreciated because the Natural Burial Ground where we were being buried preferred the wild flowers that grow there. We finished up singing "We'll Meet Again". It was a very uplifting send off and all who attended said that it was something they would like themselves.

Around £500 was donated to the Hospice and these are the two poems below that folks had a smile at instead of floods of tears. Mine came later when I was on my own.
It says 57 years of marriage in the bottom poem when I wrote it but it was 67 years by the time I lost him.

www.thenaturalburialcompany.co.uk/site-locations/prestwold/

The Marital Bed

For Gawds sake move over and let me get in
Its not very warm and my nightie’s quite thin
Panting and pushing to get him over the line
I only want half the bed the part I call mine.

I’m just dozing off to sleep when my calves go in a clamp
I jump out very quickly because I have the ruddy cramp
I can hear my other half snoring well in the ‘land of nod’
While I’m limping up and down thinking ‘you are a lucky sod’.

The cramp is slowly subsiding so I try my luck once again
More pushing shoving and heaving he really is a pain.
I close my eyes and let my mind drift like a rowing boat
When suddenly I’m choking with an elbow in my throat.

After being rudely awakened I settle down once more
Oh strewth! its started up again that never ending snore.
I bury my head in the pillow with the cover over my head
I’ve had this nightly torture since the first day that we wed.

I give him a dig to make him stop and turn the other way
Oh blow me down! here we go! he’s taken the whole duvet.
I pull it back with very much force, I have to be quite tough
So he turns over with it and puts his knees right up my duff.

I settle down once more to sleep the rest of the night through
When suddenly the bedclothes go back he has to visit the loo.
I turn to look at the clock, the hands say half past three
“Oh Lady Luck let me get some rest, please be good to me”.

My other half gets back into bed shaking me back to life
I think I deserve a medal for being an understanding wife.
I hear the clock chime four o’clock I guess Lady Luck never heard.
I may as well get out of bed and do yesterdays crossword

Copyright © - Maisie Walker 2001 - All rights reserved

............................................................................
AWANDERING WE GO

A typical conversation between myself and my spouse
Is one that I imagine goes on in another persons house
“Have you seen my glasses?” my husband said to me
“I have got to put a screw in, without them I cannot see.”

So we wander round from room to room without much hope until
I spot them in the bathroom perched on the windowsill
“What did I do with my screwdriver, I put it down somewhere”
We start another wander round and spot it on a chair.

Before I was interrupted there was something I was going to do
Oh yes! Now I remember I was about to clean the loo.
“You cannot go in there just yet I want to fix the blind”
This was my husband talking, practically up my behind.

So I decided to peel the potatoes ready for our dinner
I really thought that this time I was on a winner.
“Can you come and hold this for me, while I push this in the slot?”
My mind boggled at this prospect when in the bathroom I did trot

It was his hammer I had to hold Thank God! As he finished his chore
But I spotted a spider in the bath and made headway for the door.
My other half started to tidy up and was putting away his kit
Saying at the same time “It is a good job I am still well and fit.”

I had just managed to finish the loo when I heard my husband complain
“Have you seen my glasses?” he yelled, Oh Gawd! Here we go again.
Our natures are very different I am the one with the shortest fuse
But after fifty seven years of marriage we fit like a pair of old shoes.

Copyright © - Maisie Walker 2000 - All rights reserved

We had DH’s funeral in lockdown - strict rules from the undertaker, so the same 4 female family members had to be taken straight home in the same car to the original address after the Humanist service and cremation. DH’s sporting cronies who attended were last seen enjoying a picnic and a tot of Bushmill Millennium whiskey in a corner of the car park. The previous 3 funerals I’ve attended have all been Humanist - one was for a suicide and the poor woman taking the service broke down and someone else had to take over.
I’ve found religious funerals are few and far between now.

There’s no need for a celebrant, my OH conducted his mum’s funeral , we had a couple of musicians and a singer and a couple of the grandchildren reading poems.