A Birthday Celebration of Life

Aimee E. hired Megan as a ceremony coach to help her design a four-hour birthday memorial for her husband Tom, and to find a way for 128 people to share their losses that felt encouraging and comfortable. A microphone and podium felt too intimidating and formal.

When facing the unexpected death of my husband, I found myself standing at his visitation and then his funeral as if it were all a play and I had been thrown into playing a part. The community swelled with support and created the most inspiring show of solidarity and grief for a friend taken suddenly from their lives.

The First Funeral

After the funeral, I travelled in my deceased husband's pick-up truck with his son driving, the back full of wood in honour of his love of making firewood. In procession, we followed the fire truck and the ambulance that had been there at his accident, and that honoured his life and his service to the community as a volunteer on both squads.

We arrived at his favourite bar in the countryside to find it filled and overflowing, the owner generously offering a meal to all, another community member paying for drinks. The memories, tall tales and drinks flowed from 1 pm until 3 am the next day.

I want to say clearly that this was its own kind of love. It was the side of Tom these people knew ~ the bar-going, playful Tom ~ and they honoured him in the way that was true to them. It was extremely generous, and it was inspiring to watch everyone come together like that.

But I left an hour after arriving. I could feel in my body that at that very moment, my husband was being cremated. His ashes would be returned in a few hours so that everyone could see his transition from form to ash, and his close family and friends could take a part of him with them.

Jostled from person to person, amid condolences, hugs, old fashioneds, rum and cokes, and a priest advising me to pray more for his soul, I felt the immediate need to escape. Panic was rising, a nightmare enveloping me. I began impolitely pushing my way through a community of well-wishes and love, saying that I needed to leave. I returned home to an empty farmhouse, melted into my tears, and missed most of the event.

A Funeral Do-Over

In the void that remained after my husband's death and the bar party celebration of life, I enrolled in an end-of-life planning course with Megan and Christa. The breadcrumb I followed to get to that course was the Be Ceremonial app. I yearned to feel connected to something more in life. To dive beneath the surface and connect with the depth of experience in moments that shine in a doorway. A transition. A joy. A loss.

I was drawn to Megan because I sensed she could take these moments and give a language to my heart. Not at all in a prescriptive way, but in a way that followed what longed to be expressed.

In approaching Megan for one-to-one coaching, I felt a yearning for a redo of my husband's celebration of life. Not only because I had missed the first one, but as an expression of my grief, and to honour the person I knew more deeply than anyone else knew him.

I had an overall sense of what I needed, and even an idea of what I wanted to create within it, but Megan helped bring it to life.

Her questions were like a paint brush, allowing my heart to be the artist.

How I Designed The Rituals

The gathering was set for a Saturday in late October, four hours under a tent on the farm where I live, with a catered lunch for 128 people at sixteen round tables. It fell in the middle of deer season, at the height of the rut, in a community where most of the people attending would have spent months preparing to spend twilight in the woods, not under a tent.

Despite this, his sons suggested this day and time. It lined up with their father's birthday and his favourite time of year: hunting and delivering firewood. Their wish was to keep it short and simple so everyone could get back into the woods, which would have echoed their father's own sentiment.

My wish, typical of my style, was to create a meaningful experience for my heart and to share the generous, talented, multidimensional person I knew as my husband. So my question became this: In the four hours available, how could I create a meaningful experience for myself and for my husband's community of close friends and family ~ one that invited heartfelt sharing, created a sense of shared grief, honoured Tom's playful spirit, and made it well worth missing time in the deer stand?

Here is what Megan helped me design:

1. An invitation that asked something of people

Rather than arriving empty-handed, guests were asked to bring a baseball cap and to come with a story about Tom in one of four categories: Quirky Tom, Prankster Tom, Outrageous Tom, and Generous Tom. The invitation did the quiet work of preparing people before they ever got out of the truck.

2. A ritual only we would understand

Each kind of story had its own gesture. After a Quirky Tom story, the kind where something made no sense, everyone would turn their cap to the side and say, as Tom would, "Hello!" (his version of WTF ~ excuse me). Following suit, a Prankster Tom story earned a cap turned backwards. An Outrageous Tom story earned a cap spun around twice ~ as he would say, a double hat twister. And after a Generous Tom story, every cap was removed and held to the chest. And so it was.

3. Small stories set out beside the food

Little signs sat next to the things that were there because they were his: the cupcakes, the cheese and sausage, the wheelbarrow full of shandies. Nothing had to be explained out loud. People read as they ate, and learned something about Tom while their hands were busy.

4. Four groups instead of one microphone

After the buffet, guests were invited to join one of four storytelling groups, each one held by a friend of Tom's, each one gathered around an object that carried something of who he was. People told their stories sitting down, in a circle of eight or ten, not standing in front of 128. Then we came back together, and one person from each group came up to share the threads and themes they had heard. The stories still reached everyone and nobody had to be brave alone.

5. Kindling to carry home

We closed by inviting everyone to take a piece of kindling with them, with a simple instruction: have a fire for Tom. Sit with it. Think about all the ways you remember him, and spend that time with his memory and his legacy. The ceremony didn't end when the tent came down. It went home in people's trucks.

6. My pre-ceremony

And, before the birthday memorial, Megan encouraged me to do a small ceremony just for myself, saying goodbye to what was, being present with what is, and turning toward what will be. That time helped prepare me for what the rest of the day would hold.

My Ceremony Experience

The process of working with Megan not only helped my heart to heal, by honoring my need to grieve in an authentic way, it deeply touched others who were present, by offering a safe and structured way to share, which is not common practice in these hills of deer country.

People stayed on for hours after the suggested time, missing their night in the stand. I witnessed them being fully present, sharing stories about Tom. A camaraderie in grief had taken shape, and stories of Tom's full and varied life were woven into the persona most people knew: the legendary hunter, tracker and lover of the woods.

I heard from many that they had not experienced anything like it before. A friend of my husband's turned to his wife and said, "This is how it should be done." He was tearful, and remarked that he would begin focusing on the important things in life.

Where drinks had previously filled the hole of grief, it was honesty, authenticity and support that became the needed medicine.

Still Processing

I sat down to write this by hand, in order to connect with my heart. I think that is part of why it took me a while. Returning to a painful memory made me realize I should keep writing about this experience. It is hard to return, though, to the inner world of grief when there is so much to do in the external world of new responsibilities. Ah, such is grief in its current form.

I’m so grateful to Megan for guiding me through this journey. She has the skill, the sensitivity, and the gift to help anyone plan their own meaningful ceremony. She is an artist of ceremony and ritual.

Ceremony coaching is for anyone planning a gathering that matters and wanting a thinking partner to shape it. You can also design your own ceremony in the Be Ceremonial app.