Dear Friends,
I came across this book called What Remains: Life, Death, Ritual and the Human Art of Undertaking by Rupert Callender. I was checking out the grief + dying shelf at Indigo the other week and what attracted me to it was the cover and the brief review on the cover by The Times of London:
Sharp, angry, punchily philosophical and often funny. It basically invents a new type of lifestyle aspiration: deathstyle.
The same review goes on to say:
When I die, I want Rupert Callender to bury me.
Rupert Callender was/is basically a DIY undertaker living in the UK. His training was all on the job, basically just deciding one day he was going to be an undertaker knowing nothing about it. Spurred by the unresolved grief surrounding the death of his parents his wish was to offer people a more honest approach to funerals.
Callender went on to win the Best Funeral Director at the first Good Funeral Awards in 2012. He has since spoken on death grief, ritual, and radical funerals in Ted Talks with his wife. His company continues to thrive.
I’ve read so many books on dying and death, but this one is different. Very different and quite funny at times. The funeral system as it presently exists (in most western countries) is very much a one size fits all process.
Callander wants to show that there are many other ways of coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. He aims to de-mystify the fears around death and the way that we see it in society and help people discover their own grief for the person that they have lost. Each funeral is for that family and he will rarely say no to anything should a family request it.
This book is not for everyone, but I quite enjoyed it. The author's approach is distinct. I really admire his penchant for trying to understand and know the person he is eulogizing by speaking to family and loved ones.
A couple of my favourite pieces in the book include the following:
“Each death we experience contains every death we have ever lived through, Russian dolls of bereavement waiting to be unpacked.”
“Only once you are dead can the full arc of your life be clearly seen, and telling that story out loud and truthfully to the people who shared it is a powerful social act that both binds us together and place us within our culture.”
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