In 2023, seven people that I loved and cared about passed away. Three were friends, four were relatives. I attended a total of five funerals last year (and facilitated two of those). For one sweet friend, her husband hasn’t been able to bring himself to organize a gathering. And, as many of you know, one funeral was a dual funeral for my (birth)mother and her husband who died two weeks apart last spring.
Fortunately, this year is starting off more joyfully. Just two and a half months into 2024, I’ve already attended two weddings! One in January was for my new British friend Gill, who met her American husband Paul on a walking tour in Italy! In her 60s, it was her very first marriage. And I just returned from sunny, warm Florida to attend the wedding of my nephew Kyle, a police officer, to his beloved Tiffanie, a nurse. They are both 27 and filled with excitement and hope for the future.
As I’ve reflected on all these seemingly radically different gatherings, I’ve realized there are quite a few similarities between the experiences. At all the funerals, there was plenty of genuine laughter intermingled with the sad tears. At both weddings, there were plenty of emotional tears mixed in with the laughter and playful moments.
In my award-winning book Sacred Celebrations: Designing Rituals to Navigate Life’s Milestone Transitions, I write about the many benefits of rituals and celebrations in Chapter Five. I’m sharing some excerpts that apply to both weddings and funerals:
Rituals make occasions memorable. Whether it’s a birthday marking the passage of time, a wedding to celebrate the union of two people, or a retirement party to acknowledge the end of a career, rituals help us to celebrate significant milestones in our lives. When we look back at our lives, we tend to remember these special occasions. We remember where the gathering was held, what we wore, what the weather was, what funny jokes were told and who stood out in the crowd.
Rituals give us permission to feel deeply. Somewhere along the way in western culture, we got the notion that we need to keep our feelings to ourselves. If we are too joyful, people might be jealous. If we are too sad, people might be uncomfortable. Keep it neutral and you’ll get through life OK. Well, that’s not how we’re wired! Humans were designed with a wide range of emotions that we can feel within any given day and sometimes within an hour – we can feel joy, love, anger, grief, hope, hopelessness, and more. Rituals help us to process feelings and emotions that are “too big” for ordinary days.
Rituals ease transitions. Change can be hard and it’s helpful to have some time to mark the end of one chapter of our lives and the beginning of the next. The tradition of taking a honeymoon after a wedding allows the couple to have quality intimate time together as life partners, and revel in their newfound status as a married couple before returning to the “real world” after their wedding celebration. The Jewish tradition of sitting shiva for seven days after a loved one has died is another example. During this time, the immediate family receives visitors at their home, and they are able to openly express their grief over the loss of their beloved. Graduation parties are another good example of learning how to let go and say good-bye. Parents who are preparing to send their beloved child off to college or to begin a new job need support just as much as the 18-year-old who’s heading out into the world.
Rituals invite 100% presence. When you are fully conscious in the moment and you’ve allowed internal noise and distractions to fall away, there is a heightened sense of presence so that you can fully experience what is happening around you. Try to recall details from your wedding or the day your baby joined the world. While you might think of these experiences as a “blur” there are moments that are frozen in time that stand out because you were fully engaged with all of your senses in that experience. For example, saying your vows at your wedding is probably more sharply in focus than the blur of visiting with people at the reception. Cutting the umbilical cord of your newborn infant left an emotional imprint on you, whereas the exhausting hours of difficult labor beforehand likely blur together into one fuzzy memory.
I’d like to invite you to think about your own life. What big transitions lie ahead in the next few years? Are you:
- Preparing to become an empty nester?
- Planning to retire?
- Finalizing a divorce?
- Caring for aging parents that are near the end of life?
- Getting married? (or married again?)
- Moving homes or cities?
- Going to become a parent or grandparent?
Think about how you can design a Sacred Celebration (no matter how big or small) and make it unique—just like the person (or people) it’s centered around and just like the communities of friends and family that we attract into our lives.
When you design a sacred container for tears and laughter to co-exist, you know you’ve done it right!
And, as always, if you need help in designing this, use the contact form to reach out for support and inspiration!