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In order to create meaningful funeral ceremonies that help families express their appreciation for their loved ones, funeral directors must first learn to appreciate their own value as human beings

Editor’s note: The Director is pleased to introduce in this issue a monthly column authored by Bill Bates, founder and driving force behind Life Appreciation Training seminars. For more than three decades, Bates has offered an innovative method of helping funeral service professionals create personalized, meaningful funeral cermonies for the families they serve, and NFDA is pleased to share his insights within the pagesof its official publication.

I think I understand the meaning of "celebration of life." It means to celebrate, in some fashion, the fact that a life was lived. It is a "hip" term, but I feel it fails to communicate a full understanding because "celebration conjures up visions of balloons, dancing in the street, alcohol and loud noises, all of which leave me slightly mystified about the funeral appropriateness of it all.

In mid-June 2003, our family converged on Rye, New York, to celebrate the momentous occasion of the fifth birthday of our second grandson, Ethan. After dinner, presents and the cake, my son-in-law, Mark, initiated what has become a family tradition at birthdays: the individual acknowledgement by every member of our family of growth, accomplishment and the personal expression of appreciation for the birthday boy of girl, young or old, for the past year.

This year, my oldest grandson, six-year-old Alexander, began the ceremony by telling his younger brother how much he appreciated his help with chores, always being a good sport, and the fact that he is learning to consider the feelings of others. The ceremony continued with three-year old Caitlin telling Ethan of her love and admiration for him, her big brother. As our family went around the table, one by one, Ethan swelled with pride and a deep sense of being valued with each expression of appreciation and declaration of respect. It was as if we were on in our appreciation and joy of our beautiful and beloved Ethan.

Most people know that little children need to be adored and appreciated because this creates within them an understanding that they are valuable. You cannot treat others as valuable, however, until you first know that you are valuable. No matter how old we grow, that simple truth never changes.

Despite this, many of us fail to learn that we also have a basic need to appreciate others. When I express appreciation, I operate from the highest self-esteem from which it is possible to operate. Appreciating life does not come naturally to most of us, unfortunately, but it can be just as natural as breathing.

Good funeral directors create ceremonies that help families express their appreciation of departed loved ones. Upon occasion, this might take the form of "celebrating" but, regardless, such ceremonies should always lead them into expressing an enlarged sense of appreciation and, in so doing, empower them and expand their vision.

Rule One
The first rule for appreciating life is to know - with every fiber and cell of your being - that you are valuable. You are not insignificant in the scheme of things. Once you know this, you will begin to find your mission in life

Of course, this "life-appreciation rule" applies to everyone, but it has a unique implication for funeral directors. Knowing and truly accepting your own tremendous value is a prerequisite to discovering how to create beautiful and powerfully moving funeral ceremonies that appreciate and celebrate the lives of others. Like great art and great music, an appreciation for the master of a subject can be seen and felt in the art itself. And creating good funerals is an art.

There is really no great mystery to this. As one's appreciation of self begins to grow, appreciating the beauty and unique qualities of others becomes a natural extension. One begins to lose interest in self and gain interest in others. Once this occurs within funeral directors, coming to know the deceased through the eyes of the survivors becomes interesting and yes appreciated. Good personalized funerals require the funeral director to actually come to know the deceased through the eyes of the survivors, which goes far beyond asking a few simple questions about hobbies, employment and "vital statistics."

Recently, two funeral directors ( a father and son) told me about a personalized funeral they had developed. The son was a friend of the deceased, and had met via an auto hot-rod club on Saturdays at the home of the gentleman who died. An "in" expression signifying membership within this particular club was the homeowner's request that each person leaving his home "make some noise." This meant spinning the rear tires to make a squealing noise on the pavement.

During the funeral, dozens of hot rods followed the funeral coach to the home of the deceased, where the funeral coach driver revved the engine and slammed the gear into drive, squealing and fishtailing away from the house towards the cemetery! Group members followed suit with this highly personal and meaningful salute to their departed comrade.

I felt this created a powerful "living memory" and asked the funeral directors how they knew to do this. Their answer was simple: "We knew him."

Successful personalized funerals are predicated on funeral directors coming to know the deceased; their victories, failures, idiosyncrasies, unique qualities, their way of being in the world, what others loved about them and even how the deceased annoyed them. Reflecting the full personality in an interactive ceremony enables family and friends to capture an give voice to their appreciation. An interactive funeral focused on expressing and appreciating a life can bring family and friends into the moment of appreciation collectively, expanding the "now" into a powerful, healing episode.

Rule Two
The second rule for appreciating life is to "be present." This is easy to say but, at the end of the day, it requires of funeral directors a courageous leap into the unknown and an unyielding commitment to stay there. Few people have anything but a passing acquaintance with the "now," but the joy in appreciating is always a "now," experience, an intimate and powerfully present-moment experience with no past of future. During those times, self and surroundings disappear and only the love is present, creating a soft and all-encompassing moment.

Our consciousness can exist in only three places - past, present or future - and only two of these do not even exist. Uninspired, many people trudge blindly through life, sadly ignoring every opportunity to gladden themselves, which only occurs when consciousness is in the present moment. For them, life seems a dreary repetition of activating the past, organizing the moment and planning the future, right up to the hospice stay. None of those states of "pretend consciousness" is present-moment.

A consciousness stuck in the past is based on guilt and mans one has incomplete relationships and experiences for which one has not grieved. One of the ways to know if you do that is by how much guilt you see in others and how much you activate your un-grieved-for losses in your present relationships. Un-grieved-for relationships limit a funeral director's ability to help others grieve. If you run like crazy every time the intimacy required to help another grieve presents itself because you have not grieved for your own losses - if you have difficulty simply being present for others because of your incomplete past - begin today to reconnect with and eliminate your past pain.

During our Life Appreciation Training seminars, I have seen thousands of funeral directors do the work necessary to close the door on their pasts for good. "The Training," as we call it, is essentially about helping funeral directors "flatten" their past in order to discover their unlimited potential in the now. In their "now," they feel connected to their value and can therefore better help families express their appreciation for departed loved ones.

To show the importance of connecting with the "now," I offer the following. Many years ago, while making prearrangements with a man whose family we had served the year before when his wife died, I was annoyed and distracted at his insistence that we visit the cemetery so he could show me the grave. That day, I had many things on my mind: a body to prepare, another family to meet and an afternoon funeral for which to prepare. Finally, yielding to his insistence, we got into his car and traveled the short distance to the cemetery. After viewing the grave where he was to be interred next to his wife, we returned to the funeral home and he dropped me off.

He then went directly home and killed himself.

My preoccupation with my future prohibited me from really being present for him. Had I been in the present moment, I feel certain I would have heard his request for help; perhaps I would even have had the opportunity to intervene. Regardless, what I learned from that experience is that it is vital for caregivers to be completely, totally present during crisis conversations, so remember that making funeral arrangements can become a crisis conversation at any moment.

We face serious challenges in funeral service today, and we need serious people to respond to those challenges. Without a clear vision of our mission, we risk becoming a part of the "flavor of the month" group - those that jump randomly from one bangle and bead to another, hoping that the next "new thing" will be the right thing.

If your highest commitment to the families you serve is to learn from them their vision of their deceased family member and how to create a personalize funeral ceremony of appreciation from the information they provide, you have a storehouse of solutions that will last another hundred years.

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