Tradition You Trust
Tributes as Unique as They Were
Our On-Site Celebrant
Curt Goodwine
Every funeral says something about the person it honors. The work is making sure it says the right thing. Where they sat at the table. What they did with their Saturdays. The thing they said so often you can still hear it.
Nobody writes those things down. They come out sideways, an hour into a conversation, often when somebody laughs for the first time in days.
So that's how we start. We sit down together, and you talk.
Then comes the part you don't see. I take it to my desk and sit with it.
Somewhere in what you told me, there's a thread, and the work is finding it. When I do, the service has a shape.
Somewhere in what you told me, there's a thread, and the work is finding it. When I do, the service has a shape.
And shape matters more than people think.
Without it, a funeral is a list. Born here, married then, worked there, survived by. All true, but none of it does anything. Everyone walks in holding a pile of pieces and walks out holding that same pile.
But with shape, the service goes somewhere; it carries the room. What's more, the service actually sounds like them. That's the whole point. If the thread I found is the right one, nobody thinks about what I've written. They just think, yes. That's him. That's her. That's exactly who they were.
Getting there takes more than writing, though. It takes standing. And standing is something I don't always have. If your loved one had a pastor, call them. If there's a church that knew her, a priest who sat with her, a minister who prayed with her in the hospital, that's who should stand up. I'd rather help them do it well than take their place.
But not everybody has that. Sometimes there was never a church. Sometimes there was one, and it's been fifteen years, and the pastor who knew them retired a long time ago. Whatever they believed or didn't, whatever their church was or wasn't, their life is worth celebrating, and I'd count it an honor to be the one who does it.
