Ideas for a farewell
Making room for children
Children usually manage funerals better than adults expect, provided someone has told them what will happen and they are allowed to leave. Giving them something to do helps more than keeping them away.
How it can look
- A job each: handing out orders of service, carrying a flower, choosing a song.
- A quiet room they can go to, with someone who is not grieving to sit with them.
- A drawing left in the casket, which many children ask to do if offered.
Words you can use with a funeral director
There will be young children with us. Is there a quiet room they could use, and would it be alright for them to come in beforehand so it is less strange on the day?
This sits with
Other ideas families have used
- Food that gathers peopleWhat they cooked, or what they always asked for. People stay longer when there is food, and…
- Letting people speakAn open microphone, or a pause long enough that someone fills it. It takes longer than…
- A table of their lifeA long table, and the things they actually touched. Reading glasses, a tool from the shed,…