Revisiting a funeral urn commission

I’ve been thinking a lot about long farewells recently and about the things we do after a funeral to keep memories alive. After my own dad died we eventually received a plastic container with his ashes. We thought long about what we wanted to do with this and decided to commission an urn from a ceramics artist called Ann Bates.

The whole process of commissioning the urn was really helpful for me to feel we were doing something that dad would himself have like – he enjoyed a “project”. I’ve still got on my desk a couple of pieces of ceramic that Ann sent us to check on colours and designs. She was able to make it almost into a sort of little ceramic elegy for my seafarer dad. Colours drawn from the ocean, patterns of waves, and inside the lid (and now forever hidden) a little star map.

By strange coincidence Ann was in touch this week and she mentioned that she is exhibiting at a Fair in July. Details in the poster – it’s in Derbyshire so if you’re in the area you might like to drop in.

Dad’s urn is still in the garden – I’ve attached a photo and it is (just) visible among the flowers in a rather wild corner. A couple of years ago an adjacent wall had to be replaced and the whole patch was completely trampled and seemed to be ruined – just bare earth. But the white geraniums recovered and life returned and this year it is more lush than ever.

Good luck with the Fair, Ann and thanks again for your work on dad’s urn.

Dumfries Station and the Reciprocity of Care

As a carer for my mum I am eligible for respite care.

Of course, I get a lot of support all the time. We have a care package that means that professional carers come in four times a day and once at night. They see to mum’s personal care and move her from bed to chair and back again – she can no longer walk herself at all.

But I still have to see to meals and drugs and groceries and laundry. And mum now gets very anxious when I leave the house even just for an hour. So, in turn, I get anxious.

I hadn’t ever really imagined that this would be my life at 66. It just seemed to happen. And I can’t claim that it involves huge amounts of physically demanding labour because it doesn’t. But gradually, as mum’s independence has seeped away, I have found myself less and less able to plan anything. Spontaneity has been replaced by a sort of stasis where I spend far too long at a screen not really doing anything, yet feeling unable to break away. And this is complicated by the very real presence of what we could call “anticipatory grief”. That’s a rather academic term but anyone who has cared for someone at end of life or with dementia will recognize it. A sense of already losing someone even though they are still physically present. As a celebrant I know the importance of the funeral ceremony in providing a clear focus for grief. But this anticipatory grief just seems an endless background sorrow, lacking the definition of a clear loss. And I find myself feeling guilt that I might be “using up” or expending my grief “too soon”. It lends a different meaning to the phrase “the long farewell” that I recently wrote about.

So I value those opportunities for respite even if they only make the return harder. This time I went to see friends in London and Dumfries and Glasgow. I went to a wonderful exhibition of Zurbarán at the National Gallery. Had some lovely meals (thank you Arfan, Sebastian, Helen, Adam, Marian, Justin, Aileen – and for almost having prosecco, to Carrie and Jane!). Caught up with my dear friend and colleague Gina Tarditi Ruiz from End of Life Studies days at Glasgow University.

At one point I sat on Dumfries railway station waiting for the Glasgow train. And I recalled a family holiday that I’d spent as a boy in Dumfries. Actually, I don’t remember very much about it. I know that we stayed in a house belonging to the daughter of a neighbour. I remember the garden wall overlooked fields and that cows would come right up to the wall to greet us. I know my mother was there but my seafarer dad was probably away at the time. I don’t know how we travelled there but we didn’t have a car so I imagine we came by train from Falkirk.

A young woman, a sailor’s wife but effectively a single-parent most of the time. It can’t have been much of a respite for her to travel with two children to Dumfries, swapping one house and the cooking and chores for another. And she had me, a young boy, and my infant sister, totally reliant on her.

Things come full circle, don’t they? Now at 91 it’s mum who is totally reliant on me, my sister, our carers.

It would be dishonest to say that such thoughts comfort me or “make it all worthwhile”. But I suppose at least they give me a context for this phase of my life. An appreciation of the reciprocity of care, sparked by the strange fleeting echo of a moment almost completely forgotten – a young woman sitting on a platform holding her luggage and her responsibilities, and waiting for the train to Glasgow.

dumfries station photo by network rail
Dumfries station – with thanks to Network Rail

The long farewell

I’ve just been chatting to one of my closest celebrant friends and colleagues, Gillian Robertson. Inevitably (as celebrants always do!) we got to discussing work and she told me of a service she had recently performed for a dear friend in the beautiful Fonab cemetery.

The service was actually an interment of ashes. Gillian had conducted the funeral and now she was performing this last act of ceremony. I know it will have been a very fitting and beautiful moment.

It got us thinking about ashes and what people choose to do with these last remains of their loved ones. There are creative ways to incorporate ash into memorial jewellery or all sorts of other objects that can bring great comfort (I wrote about Lynn Smith’s bears over a year ago). Sometimes people prefer to scatter the ashes in some special place. Or they inter the ashes, perhaps in an existing family lair – when my father’s cousin Betty died down south in Farnborough, I performed a service in the local crematorium but then, following her wishes, I carried the ashes back to Scotland, where we interred them in Camelon Cemetery. Reuniting her, the last of the Urquharts, with her parents and siblings.

Gillian and I wondered how many urns stand on shelves, maybe for years. Of course, this might be deliberate. People sometimes choose to wait, say, until a spouse dies so that the ashes can be mingled and scattered together.

But are there urns that sit there almost forgotten and simply because people don’t quite know what to do with them? That would be sad because these last ceremonies can be very special and meaningful. More private and less stressful than a funeral.

Celebrants are always taught that their work is so important and that they must strive for the highest standards of professionalism because the funeral is the last word. The final curtain. And you have to get it right. Well, I certainly think that celebrants should work to those high standards. And it would be odd for me to say that the funeral doesn’t matter….. but maybe it just doesn’t have to be that last word. Sometimes, for all sorts of reasons, a funeral isn’t the perfect send-off that people would have wanted. Think of COVID times. Or those funerals where emotion is so raw, grief so intense, after the sudden death of a young person. Or some terrible family rift opens. Or someone important can’t be there. When you consider the months of planning that go into weddings and then the short time you have to plan a funeral, it’s little wonder things don’t always work.

But I always think there are other opportunities. A celebration of life on an important anniversary. The dedication of a tree or a bench “in memory”. A family meal in a special place.

Or the loving burial of ashes in a beautiful Highland cemetery.

We agreed, Gillian and I, that it was a bit like music. There are pieces that end in quite a predictable fashion. There are songs that end suddenly. And, like the last Mahler song of the earth, there are pieces that just seem to gently linger and slowly fade.

Michael Hannah, Dundee, May 2026

funeral urn by ann bates
Funeral urn crafted by Ann Bates

The independent celebrant

Scottish Independent Celebrants' Association logo

I’ve been a member of the Scottish Independent Celebrants’ Association (SICA) for most of my celebrant career. I was elected to the committee a few years ago and helped revamp their website and then I spent two years as Chair. And one of the things that drew me to the organization was the word “independent”.

When SICA was first set up in 2011, the celebrant profession was quite new in Scotland. Up till then, most funerals were conducted by ministers or priests. Weddings were also mainly religious affairs or were registry office marriages with minimal ceremony.

But celebrants were beginning to appear. Some of those belonged to the Humanist societies. There had long been a tradition of totally secular funerals, although this was very much the minority. But Scotland was becoming a more secular society and so there was increasing demand for non-religious and person-centred ceremonies. Humanists catered to this trend. Their approach was always strictly atheist, with no mention of god or the afterlife, no prayers, no hymns.

But for many families, things were never so clear-cut. In my own experience, some families may consider themselves to be non-religious but might still believe that their loved ones are reunited and are living on in some way. Many people express a belief in spirituality even if they would never describe themselves as Christian or Moslem or any other “organized” religion. Some families have a blend of beliefs with some members atheist and others still church-going Christians.

Then there are cases when a family may still be church-going but prefer to have a celebrant conduct a funeral. Why? Because they want the funeral to be based on the life of their loved one. They want a eulogy, they want memories and anecdotes. And they know that a typical Mass for example, may barely mention the life of the person.

So the demand for celebrants increased, but just as these families didn’t want a rigid religious service, nor did they want a rigid Humanist approach. And this gap was filled by “independent celebrants”. Today the great majority of funerals are led by such independents even if they don’t always style themselves that way.

I was always drawn to this independent tradition and always wore the independent label with pride. Partly this is because I feel that it gives me greatest professional fulfilment to be able to tailor the work that I do to the wishes and values of the family and friends. And partly because I see myself as a bit of a independent minded person in general.

But SICA has had to confront a possible difficulty. Wedding celebrants are able under Scots law to marry two people…. but only if the celebrant is registered with a belief body accredited with the National Records of Scotland (NRS). For example, Agnostic Scotland or Open Beliefs Scotland (so, not necessarily religious). NRS considers these celebrants not to be “independent” …. because they are members of the belief body. But many of these celebrants are also members of SICA which is not a belief body but more of a professional association.

We’ve feared for some years that this causes potential conflicts for these celebrants. They need to say they are not independent because they are members of a belief group… but at the same time they are members of an association of independent celebrants!

The potential conflict has grown much sharper recently, partly because the number of wedding celebrants has increased a great deal, and partly because the NRS appears to be tightening up on its procedures. So what has always been a bit of a niggle for SICA threatened to become a full-blown crisis with the possibility that a large number of members would have to leave.

One answer to this problem would be to drop the word “independent”. Doing so would remove the problem at a stroke. But it would require a lot of work to update logos and branding and documents…. and more importantly it would dilute that sense of identity as independents.

To help resolve this, the new Chair, Diane McLeish, asked Stella McCulloch and me to conduct a consultation of the membership with a view to taking a final decision one way or the other. We were asked because neither of us is a wedding celebrant so we could remain impartial.

In parallel with the membership consultation we also tried to get some definitive answers from NRS. We understood their position but we wanted to ask specifically about dual membership given that SICA is a different type of organization. It took a lot of chasing … and patience, they are not an easy body to pin down! But in the end we managed to get the answers that we needed and were really pleased (and a little surprised) to learn that NRS saw no problem with dual membership of this kind. Suddenly (and at a stroke!) the need to change the name faded away.

I for one am really pleased that we remain Scottish independent celebrants and that I can continue to wear my independence with pride!

Assisted dying – online workshop

Last year I was asked by Full Circle Funeral Directors to lead one of their online information sessions. Although they are based in Leeds, Ilkley and Harrogate, I knew about their very extensive programme of seminars and I’d attended a few and chatted to David Billington, one of the funeral directors who organizes the online programme. He knew of my interest in assisted dying and he suggested I lead a session on this topic.

At the time, there was possible legislation progressing through four of our “local” parliaments: Scotland, Westminster, the Isle of Man Tynwald and the Jersey States Assembly, So it was a highly topical issue. I gave some background on definitions and on the places round the world where assisted dying is currently legal. I focused on two of those places, Oregon and the Netherlands, which illustrate two different approaches, especially on the question of eligibility.

Then I described the proposed legislation in the various “home” parliaments and gave a summary of where each was in terms of its legislative schedule.

There has since been quite a bit of parliamentary movement, so David asked if I would do a follow-up session last week. In fact the Bill in the Scottish Parliament has been defeated. The Westminster Bill has run out of time in the House of Lords (due to the huge number of amendments proposed in what has been seen as a deliberate wrecking tactic by some). The Bill in the Isle of Man has been approved but is still awaiting royal assent and seems to have encountered snags. Only Jersey appears to be moving ahead.

As the situation has largely stalled, I took some time to look at several “grey areas” where people in the UK do have access to forms of assisted dying or there is a certain ambiguity. For example, there is the Dignitas route where people can go to Switzerland to legally end their life. But of course they need to be physically able to make the journey, they need to have the funds to do it (over £10,000) and any friends or relatives who help them could in theory find themselves in legal jeopardy.

Then there is voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED). I wrote recently about my reading of a memoir about this – Intervals by Marianne Brooker. I got the impression that some of the attendees at the session had not considered this possibility. Of course, ending your life in this way is not easy…. or quick.

In these sessions I try to avoid debate on “yes” or “no” to either the principle of assisted dying or on the specific legislation proposed. I also try to keep my own views to myself. I see the sessions as a way of informing people about the sheer complexity of the topic and and to highlight some of the moral issues. I draw on some first-hand experience from colleagues in Canada. And I try to open discussion to consider what impact such legislation might have on the work of funeral professions such as funeral directors, celebrants, end of life doulas, hospice workers, grief specialists etc.

If you would like me to deliver a similar session for your organization, by all means get in touch and we can discuss further.

Spring is still pretty silent….

Back in February I wrote about my impressions of reading Rachel Carson’s important book Silent Spring. It really helped to launch the environmental movement in the US. Back in the 1950s there were very few controls on the vast expansion of chemicals – herbicides, fungicides, pesticides – that were used almost indiscriminately in American agriculture and forestry. Partly as a result of Carson’s work, there was something of an awakening to the damage that was being done to America’s environment. And of course the direct damage to people’s health.

Some of the worst chemicals were banned. There was a greater awareness of pollution. The science of ecology developed and increasingly revealed the complexity, fragility and interconnectedness of ecosystems.

But here we are, over half a century later, and so many of the environmental protections are being dismantled. And the massive use of chemicals continues. This report by Nate Halverson on the use of Roundup, a glyphosate based herbicide, on forests is chilling. There is already controversy about the use of this common weedkiller and possible links to cancer. But in this report, we see how Roundup is being used in vast quantities in forestry to basically kill all plant life around young trees. The idea is that the trees, freed from any competition, will grow faster, and in time a more profitable crop of timber will be harvested. But what is the impact on the overall health of the forest? Well, it ceases to be a true forest with all the layers of life that word implies, and becomes just a stand of timber. All other plants of course are killed – that is the whole point. But also the insects and spiders, and consequently the birds and mammals….. and what about the fungi, the mycorrhizal networks that link trees in complex webs of life? Does anyone even know?

Needless to say there are also human impacts. People who live nearby or downstream. People who enjoy the woodland to walk and hike and hunt. And (of course) the people who actually carry out the spraying and who are often poor expats from Latin America. And as the report explains, there are plenty of examples of forest management in north America (for example Quebec), that do not use such intense chemical methods and which consequently employ more people, so actually helping the local economy.

Does it matter to the rest of the world that the USA is backsliding on environmental, labour and consumer protection? After all, there are plenty of examples of other countries with situations that are as bad or even much worse. For example, the violence against environmental activists in Colombia or the state of air pollution in African cities or the ecoside being carried out in the war in Lebanon (and, well, all wars really).

Surely the answer is “yes” … isn’t the USA supposed to be a world leader? That’s certainly what Americans tell themselves and the rest of us – incessantly. Thus making it especially dispiriting to witness how short-term profit and corporations’ interests so completely trump (sorry…) the needs and long-term health of local communities.

The title Silent Spring referred to the loss of the sounds of birdsong in America of the 50s and 60s. Perhaps today the silence arises from the politicians and “leaders” who so woefully ignore the desolation and destruction of the world.

Ukrainian art and resilience in Dundee

Recently I wrote about my Ukrainian guest who had lived in my flat since fleeing the war in 2022. He had given my mother a beautiful present of a painted box and I asked him who made it. I wanted to buy a new one to keep some decks of cards in.

Ukrainian art by Ness.ka

And that is how I came to meet Inesa at her Dundee studio. Inesa is a Ukrainian artist working under the creative name Ness.ka. After the start of the full-scale invasion, she moved to Scotland, where art became not only a form of self-expression but also a way to cope during a challenging time in her life.

Here in Dundee, she immersed herself ever more deeply in her practice, finding calm, strength, and a renewed sense of purpose through creativity. She works in the traditional Ukrainian Petrykivka painting style, combining her rich cultural heritage with a contemporary perspective.

Today, Inesa is аctively developing her artistic career: she has opened her Etsy shop, runs workshops, and participates in exhibitions and markets across the UK. Her work is more than decorative art — it tells a story of resilience, inner strength, and a lasting connection to her cultural roots, even though she now lives so far from home.

Thank you Inesa! For telling me your story, for the beautiful desk organizer that I bought, and for making Scotland your home.

If you are interested in Inesa’s work please look her up on Etsy or drop me a message and I will forward on.

Ukrainian art by Ness.ka
Ukrainian art by Ness.ka
Ukrainian art - desk organizer with card decks

Care time suspends the future…

I am a member of a book club run by Marian Krawczyk of the University of Glasgow End of Life Studies Group. For our last session Marian’s colleague, Naomi Richards, chose the book Intervals by Marianne Brooker.

Dr Richards, like me, takes an interest in the issue of legalized assisted dying, and this book charts the last weeks in the life of the author’s mother after her decision to end her life by voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED). Her mum was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis and suffered great pain and loss of mobility and physical independence. Had she lived in a country such as Canada or Spain, there is little doubt that she would have requested assisted dying. Indeed, as a political activist throughout her life, she was an advocate for the legalization of assisted dying in the countries of the UK.

Currently, such options do not exist. Scotland’s parliament has just rejected a Bill, and a Westminster initiative is now stalling in the House of Lords. Yet there are grey areas open to the British. The “Dignitas option” exists because Switzerland does not insist on Swiss nationality or residency. But you have to be able to travel and you have to have a lot of cash. One of the themes of Brooker’s book is how being in the economic margins (her mum eked out a living reading tarot cards online) renders everything about end of life so much harder.

Then there is VSED. You can legally choose to end your life by stopping eating and drinking. The people around you, family, carers, nurses, doctors, all have to respect such a decision taken by someone freely and of sound mind. They can help you make those last days, and in this case weeks, as comfortable and pain-free as possible. This, then, is not quite “legalized assisted dying” – though in my view, it comes very close. Perhaps we could call it “supported dying”.

Whichever way we describe it, this is no easy option, and Brooker unflinchingly describes the final days of her mum’s life as she starves and dehydrates herself to death. It is a difficult and challenging read.

Of course I took an interest in this insight into a little known route to ending one’s life legally and with a certain medical support. It is often cited by advocates of legalized assisted dying as a loophole that strengthens their case. “If someone can legally opt for VSED and receive support throughout a protracted period of suffering”, they argue, “isn’t it more humane to prescribe them something to end their life more quickly, and with greater control and dignity?”

But I found that the thing that really struck me about the book was the description of Brooker’s relationship with her mother during this intense and emotionally charged final phase. I recognized many parallels with my own situation. My mum has osteoporosis, a condition that leads to almost spontaneous “crumbling” of her bones. These cause great pain and can only be treated with time and painkillers. Following a fall in 2021, I moved in to support mum and I have been a carer ever since. Gradually my commitment has increased to the point where it is hard to leave the house for any great length of time without having to put in place some cover. And this despite having a package of care. Five times a day, two carers come in to help mum with personal care (she is unable to walk at all now) – these carers are extraordinarily professional and at the same time always good humoured and friendly. I am in awe of them and Mum looks forward to the visits of her “ladies” that punctuate her day.

The carers don’t administer drugs though. They don’t do the laundry and they don’t cook meals. And mum struggles now with anxiety and worries even when I go to the shops. So I have adapted my life to become her full-time carer. Not something I foresaw on my life plan when I was younger…

I know that mum finds life tedious now. She is confined to bed or her chair. She takes solace in the TV but seems to have given up on reading, something she once loved. She has a radio but seldom listens to it. We rarely go out now. Visitors come to the house but most of her friends are either dead or too infirm themselves to visit. It’s not a great life. However, although she is often in pain, it is less acute than the suffering of Brooker’s mum with her MS. And although mum is 91, I’m not yet sure I could say she is at “end of life”. There is a sense of limbo, a sort of indefinite finitude.

Brooker’s book is a highly personal memoir but it is also a scholarly work that deals with issues of class and gender and care. I found many of her references thought provoking. (In fact I ordered and read Simone de Beavoir’s essay, A Very Easy Death, which also deals with the care of a mother by her child at end of life – it was not, by the way, an “easy death” at all.)

One quote in particular by Professor Maria Puig de la Bellacasa of Warwick University resonated with me: “care time suspends the future and distends the present”. I have thought about this a lot, especially given that I find it is increasingly hard to plan for the future. Just taking a few days away in Glasgow becomes a complicated matter involving respite care and near-military preparation. Spontaneity becomes impossible. But I was intrigued by the reference to a “distended present”. This described something I have observed in myself – how the tasks of caring, often small in themselves, have grown to fill my days. This is not wholly negative. I find that I often lose myself in the acts of care and recognize that for my life at the moment: this is what I do.

What is more negative though is a feeling of guilt and Brooker herself defines one aspect of this in a way that hit home for me: “Grief-guilt is a creeping feeling mouldering away at the edges of reason: I did my best…. but did I really? What about that time, or this thing?”.

Thanks again to Marian and Naomi for suggesting this book. I wish I’d finished the book before the discussion – but I’m very glad I went on afterwards to read it.

Flotsam & Jetsam

Obviously as a gay, oat milk-drinking Scottish eco-celebrant I’m not qualified to speak on matters of state. I leave such things to the alpha male leaders who so skilfully guide our world. People like “Bibi”, the saintly ayatollahs… and of course the Drama Queen of Queens herself, Donald T.

But amid all the breathless excitement over the “blowing up of things”, I do sometimes think of the little people unlucky enough to have their things blown up. Some bewildered shopkeeper in Tehran or Haifa. Some hapless conscript waiting for the all-clear or the impact.

It’s hardly an original train of thought. Actually, every decent person in the whole world is thinking exactly the same. But I am the son of a seafarer, a tanker captain who in his day knew the Persian Gulf like the back of his hand. Not one to tell too many old sea yarns, he nevertheless did recall the time in some previous Gulf conflict (one forgets, doesn’t one….) when he called for help from the Royal Navy. It was refused.

So my eye was caught by this report on the stresses and fears that seafarers face on all those ships stuck in the gulf. A reminder that these huge ships that carry the oil and the gas and the fertilizer and everything else we take for granted are crewed by ordinary people just like the shopkeeper in Tehran or Dundee or Detroit.

When we write the eulogies for this particular struggle we will of course remember the noble and beloved statesmen selflessly carrying the world on their broad shoulders. But like any good celebrant would, can we also remember the “unsung heroes” sweeping up the mess after them? And a special plea for the men and women in the merchant ships, sitting targets marooned in a pointless war.

Flotsam and jetsam.

Assisted dying in Scotland and the UK

A Bill introduced to the Scottish Parliament by Liam McArthur MSP to legalize assisted dying for terminally ill people has been rejected by 69 votes to 57. This is the end of the line for this particular Bill. In England, similar proposed legislation is bogged down in the House of Lords.

However, legislation in the Isle of Man and in Jersey has been more successful. And there is an increasing number of countries and states around the world, mostly in Europe, Australasia and the Americas where some form of assisted dying is legal or decriminalized.

With elections in Scotland coming up and with polls consistently suggesting a large majority of the public in favour of assisted dying becoming legal, the issue is unlikely to go away. I’m interested in how legal assisted dying might have an impact on the work of funeral professionals such as celebrants. And I’ve conducted a couple of information workshops on the topic.

These are not debates and I try to keep my own views out of them. But they’re a chance to explore what assisted dying means in different countries and what impact it can have on funerals and grieving using some first hand experience and research from colleagues in Canada.

Now, I’ve been asked by Full Circle Funeral Directors who are based in Yorkshire, to re-run one of these sessions. Here’s a little video I made to introduce the workshop:

If you’re interested in attending the session you can find details on Eventbrite here.

Michael Hannah, Dundee, 27 March 2026

When a tree falls…

On 16 March, my friend Paul called to say that a close friend had died. He’d known her for many years and, through him, I’d met her many times.

Deborah Ballard. She was in truth something of a force of nature. Paul first met her when she was editor of the Gay Community News in Dublin. Later she moved with her partner, the musician Carole Nelson, to a house in the country in Co. Carlow. There they established a wonderful garden.

Deborah was an accomplished gardener – a real “plantswoman”. She was also a gifted writer, a poet. (In fact I have used some of her poetry in funeral services.) And together with Carole she built a place that was to become a sort of sanctuary for their many friends and contacts.

So it wasn’t surprising to me that Paul would use the phrase “a great tree has fallen…” in giving the news of her death. It’s an appropriate image. In life, a tree such as an oak is an entire ecosystem, giving food and shelter to innumerable birds and insects and spiders and fungi.

But what is also significant when we contemplate a fallen tree, is how it continues to provide food and shelter after its death. A tree doesn’t just disappear. In the lane where I live there used to be an elm. It was cut down over twenty years ago and even the stump was removed and covered with asphalt. Yet each autumn, fungi spring up through the cracks, evidence that the roots of the tree still give sustenance. I fully expect to see those traces of that great tree’s life to appear later this year. In fact, AI tells me (with suspicious precision) that a medium sized oak tree may continue to provide for between 46 and 71 years after it falls. It’d see me out!

A great tree falls but its influence and wisdom and inspiration live on.

The image I have chosen for this piece is a photograph taken by Paul himself. It is an arresting image of Deborah, the colour of her jumper merging with the leaves of a medlar tree in her garden. Deborah was already unwell when it was taken and the medlar’s leaves are ready to drop. Life and death and renewal all tangled up.

Deborah Ballard. A great tree has fallen.

for Paul Connell, March 2026.

Could it be a faded rose….?

This has been a time of anniversaries and reflection for me. I’ve been looking back over my seven years as a funeral celebrant.

Those years included the pandemic of course. It was a difficult time for bereaved families. Families were separated and in many cases, their loved ones died alone or isolated. Then on top of that, they had to decide who could attend the drastically reduced numbers allowed in a crematorium.

But other things emerged from that strange time. One of my closest friends is a photographer from Ireland. During the time of the pandemic he was living in Dublin. His closest green space, where he could escape to from the house and stretch his legs, was a cemetery.

Inevitably his photographer’s eye was drawn to the graves and the headstones and the tributes that people leave. In particular he noticed the often garish artificial flowers that people place on graves. Brightly coloured and made of plastic and fibre and wire. He began to send me photos of these. And I suppose we were both slightly mocking these tributes. Such trashy offerings!

And yet…

What Paul began to notice was that, over time, the colours began to fade. They became more subtle. Began to possess a strange beauty. And this transformation made us realize that there never was anything trashy about these flowers, however bright the colours and cheap the materials. They were placed with as much love and grief as any hothouse lily or silk paeony.

I have observed a similar transformation in funeral poetry. Of course it’s nice when a family asks me to read a classic and beautiful poem. But often they will choose something “from the internet”. And it’s not my role as a celebrant to sneer. But rather to invest those words with the emotional power that drew the family to choose them.

So they may be bad poetry and the flowers may be plastic. But they are chosen and offered with love and, just as the sunlight fades the colour into something strange, that love transforms these into something sacred.

Photos by Paul Connell, Derravaragh Studios