It’s your funeral...

7:00pm Thursday 13th November 2008

Comments (5)   Have your say »

THE chances are that, at some stage, you will plan your own wedding, blessing, a christening or baby-naming ceremony.

But how many of us actually organise our own funeral?

Ex-Eastenders actress Wendy Richard recently revealed she had done just that after discovering she had terminal cancer and it seems there is a growing demand for such a service.

Inter-faith minister and spiritual counsellor and mentor, Valery Coburn, from Canford Heath, feels there is a real need for a living funeral planner.

She has spent years organising non-denominational, religious and spiritual ceremonies for various events and is now extending her services to include funerals.

Valery, 67, first came up with the idea while working on a memorial service for a lady’s partner. “It was in my awareness the strain this puts on someone who has been bereaved,” she said. “You get people who just don’t talk about it, like this lady’s partner. All he had said was he wanted to be cremated.

“So you’ve got a person who’s mourning and you’ve got to try and ascertain certain things so that you can bring the essence of the person into the ceremony. I thought ‘why don’t we talk about death in this life?’ What a good idea if we create a living funeral.”

While Valery is aware that such a service may be of interest to the older generation, she insists that it is something younger people may also want to think about. “I’m not suggesting in your 20s, 30s or even 40s that you should be thinking about this,” she said.“But it could happen. Wendy Richard said she had created her own funeral. Everybody thought ‘what a weird thing to do’, but actually it isn’t.

“We go to a solicitor to make a will, so we think about our personal possessions but not about what’s going to happen to you.”

Having worked with families arranging funerals and memorial services for some time, Valery is all too aware of the issues surrounding such events, including conflicts of interest among friends and relatives of the deceased.

She believes that, by working with someone to determine what they want before they pass away, the stresses and strains of organising a funeral are taken away from the grieving family.

“What I’m looking to do is to make this process easier,” she explained. “To put in place things that could relieve the stress and the anxiety and the sheer added sadness of the person that’s left having to think all this through.

“I would sit with that person to create the whole ceremony, choosing the music, the words they would like read or said, even who they would like to speak at the ceremony for them.

“What I’m looking to do is the opportunity to create the service. I would like to do the service because I get to know them and you get a real sense of energy that’s going on, but they don’t have to have me do it.”

Valery suggests that, after the plans have been made, a document detailing the information be given to the person’s next of kin, solicitor or the executor of their will, until such time as it is needed.

She also recommends that close family are told that plans have been made.

“Then they know it’s done, sorted and there’s nothing else to think about,” she explained.

Some may dismiss the idea as being too morbid, but Valery believes a funeral does not have to be a sombre experience.

“You can walk away feeling a real warm, uplifting feeling because so many funerals today are about celebrating life rather than mourning the death,” she said.

“It’s the end of that journey and how you walk away from it that remains. Of course, it doesn’t have to end at the service. The spiritual side can go on.”

• To find out more about planning your own funeral, visit inspirationplus.net or call Valery Coburn on 01202 674636.