Over the years, I have got a great kick out of bringing facilitation and community engagement skills into personal event planning – our wedding (80 drums on the beach at sunrise), our daughters naming day; and more recently, as I wrote about in the March edition, the celebration of a ‘century’ – my partner and my 100th (combined) birthday.
In this issue, I wish to reflect on the celebration of a life – a funeral. This year, I have participated in two very different funerals, a traditional Catholic mass for my Great Uncle, and a celebration of a wonderful musician and friend; Jim Lay, which was conducted within a National Park complete with smoking ceremony. Within the Aboriginal communities who I have been working with, there has been much Sorry Business this year; and I have also had opportunity to experience different approaches to Sorry Business; including in one community, where the funeral is only conducted when and if all of the right people are there (and not at a pre-determined time). Last year, my Great Aunty Muffins, passed on at the grand age of 95. I was away working and in hindsight, wish that I had of created a way of “being there” despite my physical absence. I now have some strategies (read on) for addressing this.
Over the past month, I have felt very privileged to witness my colleague and friend, Nigel Russell and his family, and the way in which they farewelled Nigel’s mother. I thank Nigel for sharing his story (below) and how he and his family facilitated this event to be inclusive of all…whether in Adelaide, New York or not on this world…………………
Nigel’s Story…..
I was totally focused on what needed to happen. With my sisters, I needed to create a suitable farewell event for my 90 year old activist mother (Rosslyn Russell), and deliver the eulogy. Now a month down the track, I see what remarkable things come out of adversity and what we are all capable of. Also, how closely what happened at that funeral links with what our clients want when they are having productive meetings with people by phone conference or videoconference . I write this with a picture of mum in front of me. I think that she is co-editing this!
Here is what we wanted from the funeral event and how it occurred:
We wanted to include a range of people in the occasion, as if they were there. If you have been to a funeral, then you would be familiar with this feeling of presence and complete belief that you are there with the deceased person and that you feel people who are there and also feel people who are not physically there. How did we get this at my mother’s farewell?
We did the planning totally believing that we could “be” with people who were not there, and that they would completely “be” there with us. It became an unspoken truth in all that we did during the planning and at the service. To capture content for the eulogy, I listed various roles in mum’s life – mother, wife, wartime driver, adventurer, inventor, sustainability activist etc. That made it easy to put snippets of conversations with friends and family, into some sort of order.
We engaged a celebrant – whose role was to “facilitate” the service. He asked us about how we wanted the service to feel. We said that we wanted people to know how THEY had contributed to mum’s (and all of our) lives. His role allowed me and the other speakers to focus on our bits and he made sure the opening and closing and segues happened smoothly and in context.
We wrote the newspaper pieces and also the Order of Service focussing on people being very welcome to come, and on their contribution “Thank you for enriching her life which will continue to inspire and influence future generations”. We were engaging them in their own stories with mum.
At the funeral, we spoke to and addressed mum’s coffin.. with all of our heart and soul believing that she is hearing us and that we could hear her. While we reflected on the past, we also conversed in the present, and included her in the future! We included my younger son William in the ceremony, even though he was in New York. We did this by synchronising our times, feeling his presence with us, looking at his physical “space” next to the lectern as we spoke. Our other son James turned to that space next to the lectern and asked William if he (James) could read William’s poem! In fact some friends thought that William was actually on a phone or video link. We included names of some of mum’s friends who had already died, and how their presence and influence in her life is continuing on in the current generation, and into the yet to be born generations. We felt there was no difference between those who were physically present and those who were not.
The lesson? For me it confirms to me that there needs to be a complete personal belief – that you CAN engage with anyone, wherever they are, if you are willing to totally believe you can. A funeral service is one place where I think this happens. Do you see this happening when you watch a young child playing, where they have complete belief in their game? We ask our business leaders – what opens up to you if you could truly believe that you can engage richly with anyone, wherever they are?
At the funeral it felt wonderful to be inclusive.
