Four minute read
Not everyone wants their family to plan their funeral or has family members who are able to do so. Instead, we often support groups of friends to do a brilliant job in honouring the life of someone close to them.
Here, Jenny explains how she and her friends arranged a personal and inclusive funeral for her neighbour Denis (pictured above).
I lived two doors down from Denis. He was the first person I got friendly with when I moved in. He was a good person to spend time with — an interesting guy who’d lived a full life. I miss him.
He was fun and wise, compassionate and kind. He was also spiritual, without being religious. He was a character. I quickly went from being a neighbour to being his mate.
Every day for six years, we’d stop to chat or have a cuppa together in the garden. I fed his cat when he was away and he fed mine.
He also had a good friendship with Simon, who is the gardener [in our shared garden]. Denis was a great lover of plants and gardens. He couldn’t see very well so Simon would help him with things like his online shopping.
‘Please let me organise your funeral’
I’d known from the beginning that Denis was ill with bone cancer. One day, when the Macmillan nurse was with him, we started talking about funerals, and I suggested Poppy’s. I’d seen the offices every time I went to visit my mum’s grave in Lambeth Cemetery.
I’ve had bad experiences with other funeral directors in the past. When I looked at what Poppy’s offered, I thought, if you wanted something different, Poppy’s would be likely to oblige. Jonathan, our local vicar, said he’d done a few funerals with Poppy’s before, so that gave it the seal of approval.
Denis and I talked about it in fits and starts. Denis was very accepting that he was going to die, but you still have to choose your moment to talk about it.
He’d say, ‘It doesn’t matter about the funeral, I’ll be dead’. I told him, ‘Think about your friends, it matters to us! Your friends and family will wonder what you wanted. Please let me organise your funeral, I promise I’ll do it well. You are somebody that people are going to want to remember, you’ve touched a lot of people’s lives.’
‘We wanted the funeral to be inclusive’
Denis was a very inclusive person, so we wanted the funeral to be inclusive. I said, ‘If anyone has any ideas, just tell me. If it’s suitable, we’ll do it!’
I was the coordinator and came up with the plan and the order of service, although I went through it with the vicar, Jonathan, first. My background is in theatre and I like a production! Denis’ nephew Daniel, who was his executor, did all the admin and he suggested that I did the eulogy.
We had a service at St Paul’s church, just down the road. It’s a short walk from the house to the church, but we had one car for the older people. The rest of us walked behind the hearse to the church, like you would do in the old days. It felt appropriate for Denis — he was quite old school. People applauded as we came out.
Denis’ god-daughter Heather was so helpful in decorating the hall. There were fairy lights, flowers and pictures. We put a beautiful cloth over the grand piano. There was also a book for people to write their memories of Denis.
Heather sang a song during the service as well — Nitin Sawhney’s ‘Letting go’ — and her husband played the piano.
‘He didn’t want the day to feel morbid’
We also all sang ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’. Denis had been saying for years that he wanted this at his funeral because everyone knew the words! He didn’t want the day to feel morbid.
He had a copy of Desiderata hung up in his house. We got copies printed and tied them up as scrolls with blue ribbon to give to close friends and family.
Denis also loved flowers, so we gave everyone wildflower seeds. Simon made stickers for each packet which read: ‘These are wildflower seeds, sow these and think of me, darlings, Denis’ with a picture of a smiley face. That was so Denis.
‘He was treated with great care’
Poppy’s were absolutely brilliant. They helped hang flower garlands around the coffin. They clipped a flower and put it in his hair, as he used to sometimes have a flower in his ponytail. None of us would see it, but that didn’t matter. He was treated with great care.
I contacted his brother, who of course knew Denis when he was young, and asked him to send something about when they were growing up and what Denis was like as a kid. I filtered through everything and knitted it all together.
We left space in the service for anyone to stand up and give a tribute. We wanted it to be a reflection of who Denis was.
It was most important to me to bring the two worlds together — his friends and his family — and make sure they were both happy. I wanted to make sure everyone felt included, that they saw the facet of Denis that they knew. Fun, serious, it was all in there. I was proud and honoured to do it.
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