The importance of celebrating your life the way you want

How many funerals have you been to where you have thought, ‘This isn’t the kind of funeral she would have wanted’ or ‘He was a wonderful man and there has to be a more personal way to celebrate his life’.

Perhaps the thought crossed your mind, ‘What kind of funeral do I want? How do I want people to remember me?’ Do I want mourners to be restricted by time with a traditional cremation service?

Many of us think the ritual of death has to be done in a certain way: you hire a Funeral Director, you have a burial or a cremation with a service and mourners, you have a wake at a nearby house or pub and then you depart.

Pure Cremation offers a true alternative to a traditional funeral service

A growing number of people are looking to reduce the costs of a funeral leaving them free to celebrate the life of their loved ones in their own way. Of course, people have always been free to scatter ashes in many places and they have been inventive in doing so.

For example, the journalist and broadcaster Alistair Cooke wanted his ashes scattered in Central Park. When the New York authorities prohibited this, Cooke’s family and friends popped into a nearby Starbucks, split his ashes into 13 plastic cups, walked into the Park, read a Psalm, sang a ballad and scattered his ashes in their own way. There are more and more instances of people breaking from a ‘traditional funeral service.

Today, thanks to direct cremations, (which are cremations without a service or mourners), you can save over £5000 on the cost of your funeral, leaving your family and friends free to celebrate your life in the way you want, at a time and place of their choosing.

So how would you like your life to be celebrated? Answering these 10 questions might help you decide:

• Where would you like your life to be celebrated?
• Would you like it to be in a special building or outside in the open air?
• Is there a time of year you would like the celebration to take place?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being ‘not very much’ and 10 being ‘as much as humanly possible’, how much humour would you like in the celebration?
• Would you like your friends and family to wear formal or informal clothes?
• Where would you like them to spread your ashes?
• Is there a song or songs you would like them to sing?
• Is there a poem or a piece of writing you would like them to recite?
• Do you have any special requests?
• Are they allowed to get drunk?

Once you are freed, financially and organisationally, from the traditional formats sold by the funeral industry, the only limit to how your life can be celebrated is set by your imagination. Isn’t that what everyone would want if they knew they could have it?