07/03/2026
Hey you, 'member when we used to feel that hope was easy? Hadn't realised how much I'd missed this ledge .......
Sharing this not as an antidote to the hateful ramblings of the orange-self-monger (although that's a side bonus) more as an inspiration of what funeral content can be, with a bit of imagination.
When I meet a family and they apologise for not knowing the name of their mum's infant school or the street their dad was born on, I always gently remind them that no one at the funeral will give a flying fig that this information is missing.
In our replacing religious funerals with secular ones, we've aped the eulogies of the past.
We didn't need to.
In a traditional religious funeral, the eulogy (the part intended to focus on the individual life) only warranted being this factual life story as all the other broader, wider, more awesome themes were taken care of by the vicar or the priest.
We've lugged this limitation with us into the modern secular funerals of today and we'd find funerals so much more fulfilling if we were able to let this go.
A funeral is about feeling. A chronological life story filled with facts, charting events as though ticking them off a list, fails to bring life and light to the life which has ended.
The funeral of the Reverend Jesse Jackson was clearly not a secular event (bit of a clue in his title) but was clearly an event filled with passion and hope and rage for change ....... if these are some of the last words we'd use to describe the content of a funeral it would serve us well to question why.
So, am I saying that a funeral is an opportunity for grandstanding our own political beliefs? Absolutely not. Absolutely never.
Simply, I'm saying that a funeral is a space for truth. For the expression of feelings whatever they are. A space for honesty.
It's the only way we maximise the healing.
I'm sending love, as always, to you (and of course, as always, to Barack and Michelle 😍) xx
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