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Full Text Copyright Providence Journal/Evening Bulletin Feb 25, 2006 Death isn't funny, but, at times, funerals can be. It depends who's being honored. "Some of the stories are poignant and some are downright hilarious," says Yardena Rand, a civil funeral celebrant. "We cry at a funeral, and laugh, sometimes very heartily." Since September, Rand, 45, of Cumberland has conducted about a dozen services as the state's first civil funeral celebrant trained through an Oklahoma-based program. The concept of funerals for people of no particular religious affiliation is relatively new. The focus is not on a theology, but a personality - the deceased's. "I basically tell the story of someone's life through the eyes of the family," Rand says. Recently a Rhode Island family remembered a man's fondness for peanut butter and mayonnaise. "It had to be Skippy and it had to be Miracle Whip," Rand says. "His wife would buy those when they were on sale. When they weren't, she bought the generics. When he wasn't looking, she put the generic peanut butter into a Skippy jar and the generic mayonnaise into a Miracle Whip jar. He never knew the difference." After relating that story at the funeral, Rand turned to the man's casket and spoke. "I'm sorry to break it to you, but she really got you on that one." Everyone laughed. At other funerals, they've sung -- Patsy Cline's "Crazy," Dion's "The Wanderer" and Steve Martin's "King Tut." "It was not unusual for this man to come out of the bathroom wearing his shorts on his head," Rand says. "He'd do Steve Martin moves and sing the words to the song." Portray the person accurately and completely. Be personal. That's the goal. That appealed to Joanne Hohman. Last month, when the Littleton, Mass., woman's father died in Woonsocket, a church service didn't seem appropriate to Hohman. Her father wasn't a churchgoer. Besides, those services left Hohman wanting. "A lot of what happens is not personal at your typical religious service," Hohman says. "A lot of it is sermon and a lot of it is praying. It doesn't touch on who the person really was." Rand says that's because sometimes clergy members simply don't know who the person really was. So their remarks, while sincere, can be general, with no specificity about the person's memorable moments, odd habits, favorite songs, etc. "A lot of things I share are things people [not in the family] don't know," Rand says. Rand learned about civil funeral services last spring. She met a friend for lunch who told her about the concept. "I said, 'You do what? You conduct funeral services?' " Rand says. "As I understood more of what she was doing, I was really intrigued. It resonated strongly." Rand remembers an uncle who died two years ago. He had a religious ceremony, though he wasn't religious. "It was beautiful in many ways, but I found it lacking," Rand says. "He was an interesting man and had done interesting things, and I don't feel that we honored and remembered him with the service." Years earlier, Rand attended the funeral of a friend who succumbed to breast cancer and planned her own service during her decline. That service, she says, "was personal and beautiful." That's the kind of service Rand's friend described to her during lunch last spring: a civil funeral. Rand signed up. In August, she attended a civil funeral celebrant certification program in Niagara Falls, N.Y., conducted by the In-Sight Institute, which began offering its training in 1999. Now the program has produced 750 certified students. The organization, based in Oklahoma City, is led by Doug Manning, a Baptist minister of more than 30 years. Its business is based, in part, on one statistic: the number of people, 29.4 million, who checked "none" on a 2001 American Religious Identification Survey. "For some people this is suitable," says Cynthia Noble, president and director of Curtis Holt's Sons Funeral Home in Woonsocket. "Not everyone has a mainstream religious interest." Rand receives referrals from several funeral homes, including Holt's. That's how Hohman came to know about Rand's service, which begins with a family meeting. "I learned something about each of my family members that day," Hohman says. "It made me closer to each of them." Rand's training as a civil funeral celebrant lasted three days. She learned how to help coordinate a service, and how to personalize it. Details are the difference, and they aren't always amusing. "Don't get the idea we sit and laugh for a half hour," Rand says. "That's not true. There is still a terrible loss." But there's also an appreciation for who a person was, and what he or she liked. Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day" (when I die) was popular with one man whose funeral Rand recently officiated. "He used to pat his belly when he would sing the song," she says. "When we played the song during the service, you could see people patting their bellies." Before becoming a civil funeral celebrant, Rand earned a doctorate degree in American cultural studies from Brown University in 1996. She worked as a senior executive in a market research firm, leading focus groups. She quit that job two years ago to write a self-published book, Wild Open Spaces: Why We Love Westerns. "That is where I get my strong interview background," Rand says. Interview the family about the defining aspects of the deceased, write and deliver the eulogy. The whole process takes 12 to 15 hours and costs $350 to $500. "A lot of family members don't have the emotional strength to stand up and deliver a eulogy," Rand says. "And not everybody is a writer." And those who are emotionally and verbally strong, Rand says, usually aren't ready to eulogize. "You're trying to deal with this awful loss," she says. "Even when it's expected, it's still a surprise. People are not in a good space." Debbie Lemek is still sometimes moved to tears by the thought of her father's death in November. The Burrillville woman says she was not in a position to speak at his funeral. And since her father wasn't a churchgoer, and he specifically stated that he didn't want "a big fuss," Lemek and her family opted for a civil service. It was outdoors, which was what Lemek says her father, a fisherman and golfer, loved. That would explain the seashells, fishing lures and Red Sox baseball cap, among other items, that were buried with him. Bagpipes played. People prayed. "We didn't have a religious person there," Lemek says. "But we did have religion there." A couple of Lemek's family members did speak at the service. But mostly, it was Rand. "She did a beautiful job," Lemek says. "Funerals are sad. They're downers. But hers was more looking at who he was." For more information about Yardena Rand, visit www.thecelebratedlife.com. For more about civil funeral celebrants, visit www.insightbooks.com. brourke@projo.com / (401) 277-7267 * * * * Yardena Rand of Cumberland is Rhode Island's first civil funeral celebrant, delivering personalized eulogies for those with no religious affiliation. JOURNAL PHOTO / SANDOR BODO * Yardena Rand says she talks to family members to learn about the deceased. She is shown in Curtis Holt's Sons Funeral Home in Woonsocket. Holt is among those referring clients to her. JOURNAL PHOTO / SANDOR BODO Website designed by http://www.webwyze.com. |