Celebration of Life

Celebration of Life Information

Celebrations of life are joyous and positive events that highlight your loved one’s life. As the name implies, you are there to celebrate rather than mourn. Often, this is a request made by the deceased prior to their passing. Think of this as an upbeat memorial service. Typically, this is a get-together in which attendees laugh, share memories, and highlight positive aspects of the person’s life. Celebrations of life are often located based on the interest of the person’s life. This could include someone’s home, an outdoor venue such as a park or rented facility. Celebration of life services are not typically held in funeral homes or churches. 
Sarah York opens her beautifully-crafted book, Remembering Well, with the very personal story about how her family chose to pay tribute to her mother. "My mother died in April 1983... She didn't want a funeral. 'Get together and have a party,' she had said when the topic was allowed to come up." However, she was quick to tell readers that the survivors did not honor the request. "We needed the ritual. We needed to say good-bye, but we also needed a ritual that would honor her spirit and would be faithful to her values and beliefs."

When Ms. York acknowledges the position of her family—that they needed not a party but a ritual—she teaches us all something important: the celebration of life events we plan with families should be shaped as much by their own emotional and spiritual needs as their desire to celebrate the life lived.

Funerals vs. Celebrations of Life

It's interesting; funerals and celebrations of life have much in common, yet they often appear very different. Each is a ceremony; a gathering of people who share a common loss. It's just that one is more rooted in tradition, while the other is the result of recent changes in social values. But both serve to do three things:
  1. Help the bereaved family, and their community, publicly acknowledge the death of one of their own
  2. Support the grieving family by surrounding them with caring friends, co-workers, and neighbors
  3. Move the deceased from one social status to another
Yet they achieve those things in very different ways. First, let's take a closer look at what most of us commonly see as very traditional funerals.
Life Celebrations Baby Angels

Celebrations of life and memorial services are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to the traditional funeral. These days, families are spending less time focusing on the traditional and religious facets of a funeral. Family and friends of the deceased are getting more interested in finding unique and personal ways to celebrate a loved one’s life. A celebration of life is normally held following the cremation or burial of the deceased. Often this occurs days after a loved one passes or weeks later depending on what the deceased wanted. A funeral is usually a somber occasion at which attendees to pay their respects to the person who has passed. Family members may wish for their loved one to be buried as soon as possible depending on traditions and religious beliefs. In most cases, funerals are held one or two weeks after the passing of a loved one. 


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Celebrations of Life

Author Barbara Kingsolver, in her book The Poisonwood Bible, wrote “To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know.” We think this reflection is at the heart of a celebration of life. While a funeral, as we've described it above, has more to do with the orderly and often spiritually-defined, a celebration-of-life is more concerned with telling the story of the deceased. Celebrations of life are just that: a time people come together more to celebrate the unique personality and achievements of the deceased than to merely witness or mark the change in their social status.

Celebrations of life are similar to memorial services, which can be described as a hybrid event: combining the flexibility of a celebration of life with many of the activities of a traditional funeral order-of-service.

There's more room for creativity in a celebration of life than a funeral. Since celebrations of life are commonly held after the individual's physical remains have been cared for through burial or cremation, there is much more time available to plan the event. And without doubt, this allows you to make better decisions about how you'd like to celebrate the life of someone you dearly loved.
While celebrations of life are not burdened by social expectations—they can be pretty much anything you want them to be—it's important to realize that the event you're planning should meet the emotional needs of the guests. So, think about exactly who will be there, and what they're likely to want or need. Then, bring in those unique lifestyle and personality characteristics of the deceased; perhaps add live music or refreshments, and you've got the beginnings of a remarkable celebration of life.
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Sources: 
Remembering Well: Rituals for Celebrating Life & Mourning Death, Sara York
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