A funeral or memorial is the hardest ceremony to write because it is the one that matters most to get right. The person being remembered will only be spoken about in this particular way once. My job is to help the family find words that are honest, not a sanitised version, not a list of dates, but a real account of a real person, and to lead the service with the steadiness that lets the people in the room actually feel what they have come to feel.
What it includes
- A long first conversation with the family, often in person, to listen to who the person was. The harder, funnier, more contradictory stories are usually the ones the eulogy needs.
- A draft shared with the family in time for changes.
- Coordination with the funeral director, crematorium, or burial site, and with anyone the family would like to speak themselves.
- The service itself, led with care, including a written eulogy if the family would like me to deliver one rather than (or alongside) family members.
On religion
Most of the funerals I lead are non-religious, but many families want a single prayer, a Lord's Prayer, a hymn, or a specific reading kept in. We can include any of that and still keep the ceremony grounded in who the person actually was.
Kind and compassionate, Debbie spent time getting to know the individual and made sure the service was personal. I'd highly recommend her.