How Can we Find Ways to Grieve Together During COVID 19?
While these are difficult times, the opportunity to share memories isn’t lost.
Regardless of your funeral service having 5 people or 500 people in attendance, each are equally important. The team at Gift of Grace Funerals are dedicated to guiding you through a personalised and meaningful funeral experience, -even though it may be different from what you’ve previously imagined.
Planning a funeral now may feel challenging, but there are still so many different choices about how to remember someone and say goodbye.
Some Questions You Might Want to Think About While Planning Are:
- Will the ceremony be livestreamed, or for those who can attend, or both?
- Do you want to work with a celebrant, clergy or will it be family led?
- Are you hoping for a structured service or something more informal?
- Do you know who will attend and will you need to consider invitation only, depending on the Chapel capacity you choose?
- Is there anything meaningful you’d like to do later on?
How to Share a Ceremony With People Who Can’t Attend
A really lovely way of sharing eulogies, poems, funeral ritual, and special tributes with your wider community of family and friends who are unable to attend is to LIVESTREAM.
Gift of Grace Funerals is currently providing this as a FREE SERVICE AS A WAY OF ‘GIVING BACK’ TO OUR FAMILIES.
Live streaming offers the opportunity to share a ceremony and we’re here to help in any way we can.
Ideas to Help You Say Goodbye
There are so many ways to commemorate someone, and they don’t have to be complicated to be meaningful.
A light touch approach might just involve sharing a significant photo of the person who has died
You could also ask friends and family to light a candle or play someone’s favourite song or say a prayer (in your own personal way) at a specific time.
Whether or not you can see them, knowing the other people are taking part can be very powerful.
If you’re planning an in-person ceremony your could read tributes from absent friends, or read the names of the people who wished they could be there.
Planning a Memorial
Once social distancing has ended, you may like to hold a memorial to remember that person who has died.
A celebrant or religious clergy may make it possible to feel a bit more like a ‘funeral’ by helping you structure a service which could include a reading of tributes, a pictorial photo journey, ashes placement or scattering, or simply sharing a social gathering to celebrate that person’s life and death.
Whilst these are strange and overwhelming times, the opportunity to share memories isn’t lost. The fractured lives of families’ during this current crisis require special understanding and support. We’ll continue to walk alongside you to help navigate the ‘murky waters’ of the effects of COVID 19 related funeral restrictions.
Please contact one of our fabulous funeral directors to discuss how we can help you with planning the best possible funeral experience. Embrace the Grace!