The Hug
Lesley Mitchell,
Aberdeen, Scotland
I am a Celebrant and have been doing funerals for many years. Helping families at the lowest point in their life to come to terms with their loss; to give them the opportunity of saying goodbye in the way they choose. Some choose totally secular and many choose religious elements and often wanting the Lord’s Prayer included even if they have no religious belief.
I go to visit families gathered all in one of their homes, and with a cup of tea and a biscuit hear all about the loved one. There is laughter and sometimes tears and someone will give that hug. Often as I am being shown out I am given a hug - a thank you for making the unknown easier.
At the service families all sit together supporting each other, laughing together and shedding those tears. I see a hand going out to comfort a father or an arm going round the shoulder of a mother who has lost her son - giving that hug. At the end of the service there is often a hug for me and a firm handshake for the Funeral Director - a thank you for making the worst day of their life a little easier.
Not any more. Families are separated in the pews of the stark crematoria, devoid of the usual fresh flowers with the staff doing their utmost to help. I saw a husband, who had lost his wife of 55 years having to sit on his own. Seeing his family who live all over Britain for the first time he still has to sit alone. He is bereft and the tears are falling like raindrops as tears are after all droplets of love with no where to go. In the car park before the service none of his daughters or son have been able to give him that much needed hug. Even sadder is that that poor man went home to an empty house. No wakes with family and friends to offer the handshake and the hug.
Perhaps after all this we will value that hug even more, make that handshake have some genuine meaning. None of us will forget the dark period when the world went mad and we were not allowed to hug!
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Lesley Mitchell
Celebrant Ceremonies Aberdeen.