One of the reasons I love Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery

As you will know by now, I am a big fan of Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery. Progressive, inclusive, very community spirited — they even have an artist in resident Ms. Paula Jardine.

Someone I have got to know over the past year or so is Facility Manager Robin Naiman.  She brings such a sense of calm and trust to her work. When you meet Robin to discuss holding a memorial or celebration of life at Mountain View, you know immediately that you are in good hands.  Intrigued by this graceful woman who knows all things related to the Celebration Hall where I have performed a number of Vancouver funerals and memorials, I thought it might be fun to ask her to tell us more about herself and how/why she came to her work at Mountain View Cemetery.  You’ll love what she had to say:

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How I can help you create a beautiful memorial service

Your loved one has died. If you are not part of a faith community, who do you turn to for assistance with creating a memorial or funeral service?  Or as many people prefer today…a Celebration of Life. As a Funeral Celebrant, this is where I can help you.  I can work with you and your family in a variety of ways to help you have a meaningful experience, with as much or as little support as you need.

In the period immediately following a loved one’s death, you will be in a time of disconnect.  Things will alternately seem real and unreal.  And you will be busy!  There is a LOT to do after a death.  Most people find themselves overwhelmed.

Here’s how I can help: Read More >

Catastrophe and the Spiritual Path

For those of you living in difficult circumstances… divorce, loss, job transition, holiday blues… I found this quote and thought it might be helpful. These are the words of Joan Halifax Rosh, from her book Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death

“Catastrophe is the essence of the spiritual path, a series of breakdowns allowing us to discover the threads that weave all of life into a whole cloth.”

Celebrant Michele

In Death a Celebration of Life

Recent weeks have brought death to my office door.  I have been called upon to work with a number of families who have experienced the death of a loved one. When people see me celebrating marriages and births so joyfully, they sometimes forget that I work on “the death stuff” too. In fact, my primary motivator in becoming a Celebrant was to work with families in the raw times of their lives… by providing deeply meaningful End-of-life Ceremonies.

It may sound odd but I feel at ease around death.  I’ve experienced a somewhat shocking number of deaths of friends and family, some of which were tragic deaths including suicide. Instead of numbing out, I chose to fully experience the complexity of grief, with all its swings of emotion. To move towards sorrow and not away from it. Read More >

Remembering our Dead: Part II

You may have read my recent post on leaving Rosemary or small pebbles when visiting a grave site.  Continuing on the same theme, I thought I’d share some of the offerings I’ve noticed these past few years while walking my dog through the beautiful grounds of Mountain View Cemetery.

There is such a variety of grave markers to begin with… each cultural group seems to have its own style.  Inscriptions vary widely, but share the brevity dictated by marker size. One of my personal favorites is the Victorian-era description of a widow as a “Relic”.  But I digress…

With respect to offerings left at graves, I’ve seen:

• Every flower under the sun. Bouquets small and vast.
• Teddies  (not recommended!  Stuffies look so sad after rainfall.)
• Plastic toys, soothers, jewelry,
• Photographs, sometimes framed
• Candles (I love it when I find these still burning)
• Coins
• Food, paper money, and paper furniture in the Chinese section
• Crosses, religious figurines, icons, crucifixes
• and the most perplexing of all… a gravesite that regularly has a bucketful of cigarette butts dumped on it.  And often a small empty bottle of booze. Once a shot glass.  I never seem to catch the visitor in the act… I’d love to know more.

Today I noticed two graves, side-by-side, with long stemmed fresh flowers standing on end around the markers.  Someone had inserted a sturdy wire into each flower stem and then speared them into the ground. Like a ring of flower-trees.  It looked fabulous!

Cemeteries are wonderful places to walk and reflect on the beauty, the strength and the fragility of the human life. I love reading the inscriptions to learn about lives lived. Amazing the personality that can be described in just a few well chosen words.

Far from being scary places, cemeteries are a testament to our capacity and our desire to remember those we love.

On October 30th, Mountain View hosts their 5th Annual Night of All Souls.  This is a public event for us to remember our dead in an atmosphere of contemplative beauty, with music, warming fires and fragrant teas to comfort the living.  Candles, flowers and other materials are available for the creation of personal memorials that can be added to the public shrines throughout the cemetery.

Remember,

Celebrant Michele Davidson