You are standing at the graveside and would so like to say a few words. Notes lie in your hands, read what feels like a thousand times. It is your heart’s wish, but right now not a single word will pass your lips.
I know this from my own experience. At my mother’s burial it was much the same for me. Even though, twenty years ago, I already had some experience as a pastor and celebrant.
But as a grieving person I want to be able to take part in a farewell differently: protected, supported, with plenty of open space that someone else holds for me.
It is good that there are people who have learned to hold the space in these difficult moments for a grieving family and for those close to them.
We are the professionals who can hold individual and group conversations and prepare a farewell with you entirely according to your wishes; we are bridge builders when it comes to taking account of, or reconciling, the differing wishes among relatives and those close to the deceased;
we are ritual guides who give you ideas for helpful and healing rituals and strategies and step in when words fail you during the ritual; we are there in the background and take over spontaneously if your strength fails or if “it is not your day”; many of us are grief counsellors who are also trained in psychology and accompany you through your various processes of mourning. We are conversation partners who are not entangled in the old (family) stories and who, through this outside focus, can open up new perspectives.
This leaves you more time for your own very personal grief. And it leaves strength, so that a pearl can grow out of the mourning.
Allow yourself professional support.
