Over the ages, different religions have adapted a body of ceremonies, rituals, and rites which their representatives have followed spontaneously and almost automatically. In general, the staff of funeral homes have played only a supporting or secondary role with respect to the rituals surrounding death. Religion had the upper hand.
However, in today’s context, funeral home staff are on the front line in managing funeral rituals.
They are now the ones being called upon, not only as specialists in arranging funerals, but also as trusted advisors who can be depended on to make the right decisions. Death, even when expected, always comes as a shock. The emotional burden overwhelms those affected, so they require not only technical skills but also psychological and historical awareness, an ability to listen, discretion, and unfailing integrity.
There are so many issues that arise when coping with the death of a loved one – and not only when it is unexpected. There is the emotional burden, as well as medical, economic, spiritual, religious, political, cultural, social and other implications.
The response cannot be improvised. Suitable rites take on symbolic dimensions that have their roots in history, anthropology, ethnology and the history of religion. Funeral home staff must play the role of trusted advisors. They cannot just be silent or ineffective onlookers while decisions are being made that can have considerable human, economic and social costs.
Every human being is entitled to a fine send-off when life ends. Someone who has been for others, if not a VIP, at least a certain model or reference, or a source of skills and abilities of all kinds!
To celebrate (that is, to speak out loudly and clearly) and to pay homage to a person for what he or she was, in the presence of those with whom they crossed paths during life – we can provide this “service”, as religions call the gathering held at the time of death of one of their members. And also the services which religion can provide for us.
Funeral home staff must remain aware of the two basic goals of the care they provide for their clients, on the basis of tradition and religion, as well as the prevailing philosophies and legal and political thought.
Their initial reactions are primarily emotional in nature, so the first responses required will relate to the emotions. The chosen rituals are accordingly symbolic in nature. Rituals are among the means to bring peace to the bereaved.
Rituals, like values and like standards, are not individual or personal as some people claim. They are, to quote Eric Volant, “social constructs,” invented by humans in an attempt to deny and go on living in the face of death. They are a kind of common language, cultural languages invented and shared by human beings and transmitted like folk wisdom from generation to generation.
To put words to a reality is already a way of establishing control over it. The cultural language of ritual has played and continues to play this role.
These rituals are repetitive, somewhat like the rituals of nature itself. We know that after the darkest night, the dawn will follow. After winter come spring and summer. The days, seasons, years pass and then return. We see continuity in this change.
Earth, water, fire, flowers, music, song, dance, tears, written material, words, gestures, clothing are all ritualized means that can bring peace and a new sense of stability. Ritual is first of all a way of coping with the unknown (here, the unknown aspects of death) and of providing support, familiar landmarks to help us start over.
This is how we must welcome and highlight the deceased. Give friends and family an opportunity to gain nurture from the emphasis on what she did and, in particular, on what she was. Her actions, plans, achievements, dreams and, especially, what kept her going: family, work, interests, etc
Take time before making irreversible decisions and encourage the bereaved not to try to rush things. Avoid making too abrupt a break with the deceased. We much take plenty of time to go as far as possible, physically and mentally, with someone who was so dear to us.
Avoid the appropriation or scattering of ashes, for example, always respecting our starting principles and goals: the dignity and integrity of each and every human being, and also that no human being is someone else’s private property even though we do always say my husband, my wife, my son, my daughter, my girl friend, etc.
The ceremony held on the death of a human being must be part of this search for coherence with what she was and what she has done. Otherwise, it is a mere masquerade or ritualism, rites just for the sake of the rites.
But everywhere we see goals, limits, measurements or parameters for our action. As rational human beings, we want to see order in all things, and this is normal. Death also can be placed within a context that includes everything else relating to human beings.
Extract from a text by Mr André Bouchard, retired teacher of ethical philosophy.