Today we said goodbye to an 80 year old gentleman; a popular man, with a big loving family. He also had a lot of friends. Honestly, I have never seen so many messages of condolences at a house when I visited his family to help them plan the ceremony...I don't think there was an inch of spare space anywhere. And neither was there any space at the crematorium - "standing room only" doesn't come close to how packed the place was.
As I've written before, using an independent celebrant gives the family so many choices and helps to create a very personal ceremony. And todays was a bit different. For today's ceremony, I said the final words, paused and then (with the curtains still open) the exit music started: Status Quo and "The party 'aint over".
Now, as someone who spent his youth listening to Quo, AC/DC and Saxon (among other fab bands), the opportunity to play out to Status Quo was great.
But what struck me most was how perfect it was. It was loud, fun and put a smile on lots of faces (which is a pretty good description of the man whose life we were there to celebrate). But when the curtains closed halfway through the song, it was still incredibly moving. A real 'lump in the throat' moment as we said that last goodbye. Memorable, heartfelt, personal - it felt a lovely ceremony today.
Andrew Jackson is an independent (non-faith) celebrant, working in Bristol, Bath & Somerset.
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