Concerning the Family
Over the years, the silent prayer I offer before I meet with the family has remained constant in my preparation for a funeral, memorial, or celebration service. You have no idea who will be in the family group that awaits you and what the needs or the mood of that group will be. So I place my meeting with them in God’s hands in the hope that together we will be able to arrange a faithful service or celebration worthy of the person who has died. It has often proved to be a stressful and difficult process, but I have never come away from a family meeting feeling that I have given less than my best to the preparation of the service or celebration. With the benefit of hindsight, my best has not always been good enough, but you can only go with the people available to you and the information they provide.
There is work to be done before the conversation with the family, and some of it will have been done in the course of pastoral visitation at the time of death or in the normal course of faith community life. If you have known and visited the person who has died, then you will already have established your own picture of her.
If you didn’t know the person, check out the information given to you by the funeral director or the family member with whom you first speak. At least you will be able to tell if the death was expected or sudden, whether the person who has died was old or young, and probably whether she was a member of a faith community or not. You will know whether there has been a decision on the final disposition of the body or cremated remains of the deceased or whether they will be in the keeping of a family member. If you know a friend of the person who has died, a quick conversation with him might be helpful.
It is useful to jot down some of the qualities that come to mind, such as how she appeared to you and whether other people’s opinions validate your own. My notes might look something like following:
Death expected, 75 plus; Grace; always had a friendly smile; husband Bert died five years ago—I did funeral; member of the woman’s group, went out of her way to welcome newcomers; had a green thumb…loved roses; one grandson, Matt, her pride and joy; terrible singer and loud; commented unfavourably on my ties—“Why doesn’t he wear a collar?” Helped at Shelter House. Others saw her as one who helped without any fuss; had a terrible, loud voice; arranged the church flowers; taught Sunday school 20 years ago; was a member of the Rebecca Lodge; sometimes spoke her mind without thinking.
The comments of the funeral director and the comments and voice tone of the family member whom you contacted will alert you to the family mood following the death of the loved one. If the service is to be held in a sanctuary/reception area that is not your own, then you will have contacted the clergy person or hall administrator, who may have made some comments or challenges for you to bear in mind at the meeting. You may have other information from the musician to pass along. You will have made some notes; check them over before coming to the meeting with the family. This preliminary work is worth the time.
The family members often have no idea what you will want to do in your time with them or what you will say. I usually invite the family members to tell me their names and where they come from and write down their relationship to the deceased. I mention to them that I will take notes of the conversation, adding, “My memory isn’t so hot!” I then look for common ground to reduce the stress level, for example, I may discover that they live close to a city where I have lived or have children the same ages as my children. Then I explain the elements of the funeral /celebration service, the thanksgiving, the sense of loss experienced by those at the service, and finally the gospel hope that the Christian faith makes clear for those who are members of the faith community. If the Christian—or another—faith is not a significant factor for them, then I make the point that the person who has died will live in the hearts of those whom she loved for as long as they live and I share with them that we will talk about that.
Rather than ask a whole lot of direct questions at the start, I encourage the family to carry on a conversation about the loved one, with me, the worship leader, as the friendly but quiet observer. An open-ended comment, such as “Could you talk for a little while about your mother…tell me what she was like and maybe share a few stories about her?” may get the conversation going. Some family members will be more willing or able to talk about their loved one than others, so a little encouragement to the reluctant members will not go amiss. If this indirect approach doesn’t work, some direct questions like “What did your loved one enjoy doing?” or “What have you learned (or not learned) from your loved one?” may help.
Another good question to provoke discussion is “What gave your loved one’s life purpose and meaning? What was really important to her?” Or a question like “What three words best describe your mother?” or “What have you learned from your loved one?” will often stir the memories of family members and get them talking.
It is important to establish at this point whether someone from the family or someone on behalf of the family will be offering a eulogy, memorial, or tribute about the person who has died. If this is the case, the worship leader will have less information to gather, though she still needs to have a feel for the person before she writes the prayers and prepares the meditation and service.
Going through the worship leader’s mind as the family members reminisce will be a number of questions: What were the characteristics of the person? What did your loved one enjoy doing? Was she naturally shy or an outgoing person? Did she work outside the home or was she a homemaker? And was the homemaking more important than the work or the other way round? What work did she do and did she enjoy her working time? In what ways? And was she appreciated for the job she did?
How did her family see her? A caring mother and grandmother? A matriarch? One who got along with everyone? A great cook? A person who played well with the grandchildren? Was she liked within the family circle? Was she loved? Was she respected? Was she tolerated? Was she a gardener? Handy with the needle? Was she on Facebook and Twitter? What did she do for fun and further education? And what was her level of education or trade training? What sports did she play and what satisfaction did she get from her participation? Did she play a musical instrument? Play in a band or group? What music did she enjoy? Jazz? Classical? Pop? Elvis? What were the challenges in her life, the troubles she had to go through? How did she help other people? Locally or overseas? What were her regrets in life and what did she see as her accomplishments? What did her friends see as her accomplishments?
How was her life of faith? Was she a regular or occasional churchgoer? Was she active in Christian education? Did she take a leadership role in church life? Did she sing in the choir? Was she a leader in raising social justice issues? How would she like to be remembered for her church life? How will others remember her? Was she spiritual rather than faithful? Did she practise a spiritual discipline? Did she meditate?
Did she have a significant place in the local community? What did she give to local life? Were there groups for seniors or fraternal organizations where she was a member or leader? Was she a much-treasured member of a seniors’ home? How was she seen in these communities, and how will the groups be poorer for her death? Was she a golfer, a walker, or a cyclist? How will the teams she was a part of miss her skills and abilities, her contribution to the life of the group?
If you were to set the loved one’s life to music, what would be the theme tune? What is the central theme running through her life?
The family conversation will not reveal the answers to all these questions; neither is it supposed to.
What the worship leader needs is a picture, an accurate sketch, of the person who has died so that thanks may be offered for her specific life. Each person is unique, and each is worthy of a unique thanksgiving. Friends and family members will be encouraged during the service to remember the person in their own way and, perhaps more importantly, to continue to remember her long after the service is over. It is useful to think of the meditation as a catalyst that gets people remembering and keeps their memories strong.
As you consider what you will say in your meditation, reflect back especially on the stories that speak of the core values and the loves of the person who has died. What activities were most important to her? What did she spend her money on? More significantly, what did she spend her time doing, and on what did she use her most treasured skills and energy? What did she love doing? And whom did she love most?
An alternative to the above “theme approach” is for the worship leader to work with the family to draw up a short life story of the person who has died. Family members may have a head start on this if they have had to produce an obituary for the newspaper, but a “life story” is not just the factual account of the life. It can be one with humour and anecdote added to make the person live in the minds of the hearers, and it will be best if family members can augment the narrative with stories from the family storehouse as the life account proceeds.
On the day of the celebration, the life story may be told by a family member if he is able to cope emotionally or by the worship leader. The advantage of the “life story approach” is that the whole spectrum of the person’s life will be covered, and many in the congregation will learn about aspects of their friend and loved one that they would never have imagined from their limited experience of her. The disadvantage is that time will be spent on not missing an important stage in the life’s journey rather than on the key stories that make clear the core values and the central theme of the person’s life.
As you listen to the family conversation, you are challenged to think about the relationship of each member to the deceased because their relationship will colour their stories and their memories. Did they get along? Were they the favoured sons and daughters or did they do the lion’s share of chores in the family home and receive little thanks?
What will also be apparent at the time of a parent’s death and during the interview with the family are the relationships between the family members. Is it an easy relationship with lots of leg pulling and inside jokes or are there tensions from childhood that emerge and are magnified? Do siblings like or positively dislike each other?
The worship leader will usually be unaware of the rivalries between family members before the family meeting. Such rivalries may cause disagreements about the service content and what happens to the remains of the loved one—way out of proportion to what one would expect. These service or celebration items have the potential of becoming the battleground where long-standing rivalries are played out. If you have trouble working it all out, don’t blame yourself! Your role in this situation is not to determine who is right and who is wrong, but to keep your eye firmly on the end result, that is, a service that is worthy of the person who has died and the prompt and mutually agreed final disposition of her remains.
To practise the art of writing service material, you could work with another worship leader and imagine that each of you has been given the task of writing material for the celebration of life or funeral of the other. You might have a session where you imagine that you represent your family members, gathered after you have died, and answer the questions needed to create the theme of the service, the meditation, and prayer of thanksgiving. You could choose hymns and scripture readings and put together a whole service for review by each other or a sympathetic friend. An alternative might be to work together on a service for a well-known fictional character or cartoon star. Dagwood from the Blondie comic strip would fit the bill or maybe Ellie from For Better or for Worse.
Either practice idea would be a great training exercise for deciding what constitutes the core values of the person and which characteristics and achievements should be highlighted.
The worship leader should be ready for disagreements about the service that have not been worked out ahead of the family interview. On one occasion, I had two sisters strongly disagree at the beginning of our meeting about whether the service for their mother should be in the church where I was minister or in the local community hall. One sister said, “I hope I don’t have to listen to a whole lot of religious propaganda from you during the service. Can’t we have the service at the Legion without any of this God stuff?” The other sister took the opposite view: “Mother was a faithful member of this church for 55 years, and for her the Christian faith was a guiding light. This is where the service should be held.”
Clearly this disagreement should have been worked through before the family members came to see me. I told the two sisters to go to another place in the church and work out their differences and then return if their points of view had been reconciled and tell me whether this faith community (including myself) would be able to help them. They did just that, and the service went ahead in our sanctuary.
Family Feelings about the Death
The worship leader should be aware of the feelings of the family members around their loved one’s death. This is often not straightforward and may depend on the circumstances of death or a relationship that changed over the years. Here are examples of different circumstances and the feelings that arose from them:
Marie, 10 years old, was killed as the snow machine she was driving turned over in rough terrain. Her parents had a rule that she was not to go out on her own, but Marie, a kid who did not listen if it didn’t suit her, had disregarded the parental instruction and to make matters worse did not wear her crash helmet. She picked up the keys to the machine, went out at the end of the day, and accidentally hit an obscured tree root in the trail. The parents had a huge sense of loss in the death of their only daughter and major guilt feelings about the snow machine and its keys being easily available. However, the guilt feelings were mitigated by the fact that Marie was disobeying direct instructions, and they slowly came to terms with her death after joining a grief group.
Flora was in her nineties; she had fallen, broken her hip, and contracted pneumonia. She had enjoyed a good life and had two children and five grandchildren. She had been a widow for eight years. It soon became clear that she would die from complications from the pneumonia. Jeff, her eldest son, lived close by and had always been a support to his mother and recognized that her death was inevitable. He thought that only drugs that eased her pain should be administered, and no oxygen. Jeff was quite at peace with his mother’s death. “I think Mom should be allowed to slip away,” he said. Frank, the youngest of the three, lived a day away by plane and had seldom come to see his mother. Now she was dying, his guilt came to the fore. “I don’t think the doctor is doing enough for Mom,” he complained. “Why doesn’t he insist on using oxygen and tell the nurses to feed her? I think she could live a few more months yet. I am going to report that doctor.” Even when she died peacefully Frank continued his tirade, but his feelings stemmed from personal neglect of his parent, and in reality her death was handled carefully and with compassion by medical staff.
May was in her late fifties and was dying from ovarian cancer. Her death was painful and long-drawn-out. May’s older sister, Freda, took charge of her dying and enabled May to die where she wanted, at home. Caring for her was a major task, and she called on a good friend of May, Hilda, to stand in when she needed a break. At first, Hilda seemed to be doing well, but her sense of humour and her level of care began to deteriorate. Eventually, Hilda had to be replaced by workers from a care agency and when Hilda and Freda talked about this, the reason became clear. “My mother died of ovarian cancer,” Hilda said. “Being with May reminded me of my mother’s death and made me terribly afraid. I went to the doctor because I thought I might have cancer as well.”
As one sees from the above examples, the feelings that arise when someone dies may result from events and situations beyond the knowledge of the worship leader. One time, I was talking with family members who had lost their mother and, for lack of any positive information or funny stories of family life, I asked them what good things we might share about their mother. There was an awkward pause, and then one of the three children spoke up for them all: “Our mother gave us a very rough time as kids—and after. Today, they would say that she abused us emotionally and verbally. We are all glad she is gone.”
In this case there were no good feelings. On the contrary, there was joy in her passing. Although this is an extreme situation of dislike, there are many situations where there is little sorrow engendered because the person who has died was sarcastic or angry or mean-spirited or cruel. How is the worship leader to deal with this situation?
The first and obvious factor is that if there are few or no feelings of loss, there is no need to speak of the loss and how to deal with it in the meditation. Yet a note of caution needs to be sounded here, for there may be those outside the family circle who were close to the deceased in a friendship, social, or intimate relationship who will be missing her very much. Their loss needs to be taken seriously. And this leads to the question of who judges the worth of the individual.
The group meeting with the worship leader may have little or nothing good to say about the person who has died, but there may be those who have experienced the care, good humour, or skills of the person in an area of which the family is unaware. The family members may also be unaware of a traumatic event or childhood relationship that was at the root of the unpleasant character trait. In a situation of unrelieved family negativity about the deceased individual, the worship leader would be well to cast his net wider for others who are able to speak about her in a positive vein.
Perhaps the most important questions to be asked are “How does God see this unpleasant person? Does God see a person as one who is to be punished or excluded from eternal life? Does God see an evil influence to be erased and a sinner to be condemned?” Those who, like me, have the vision of a God of ultimate loving kindness, a compassionate God, will see the unpleasant person as one whose dark side is to be acknowledged, but whose ultimate destiny as one of God’s children is secure. If everyone is aware that Frieda had a sharp tongue, or was mean, or disliked her children, then this may be mentioned in the service, but this negativity may be balanced by talking about some of her good talents or kind ways with friends.
A particular situation sometimes encountered is where there was an addiction to alcohol or drugs. Some families will want to cover up the use of alcohol or drugs both in the interview and in the meditation given at the service. However, if the addiction is well known to the family and friendship group and influenced the behaviour of the individual, the “elephant in the room” will be obvious and will bring a sense of unreality if not mentioned in the service.
A huge sense of relief may be experienced where the dying person’s life partner has been under strain due to caregiver duties that he took upon himself or caregiving that was thrust upon him. Those on the outside may be critical and comment on his lack of grief in a negative way, but the insiders will be sensitive to the pressure sustained in the weeks of responsibility prior to the loved one’s death and the relief he now feels at being able to get back to “normal.” Superficially, his feelings might seem to be those of indifference and lack of grief, while the true feelings will reveal a joy that the struggle is over. In the service it will not be wrong to articulate the joy and relief alongside the grief that is being felt by friends and will be experienced in due time by close family members.
A counter to the relief that the struggle of the loved one is over and that “We did all we could,” is the complaint “We could have done more…” “We could have spent more time with her when she was ill; we could have been more persistent with the doctors when they were passing the buck from one to the other; we could have tried different treatments or the herbal remedies our neighbours recommended.”
Sometimes these feelings of guilt have a foundation in fact, but most often there is little basis for them. My experience of being with families of dying loved ones is that there are at least one or two family members who compromise their own health by staying beside the dying person. During the family interview there is a good opportunity to affirm their loyalty and caring and invite them to relax and take it easy for a few weeks.
If the feelings of “I could have done more” persist, then the person should be referred to a psychologist or counsellor for help. In the service, it may be useful to include a prayer of confession and assurance of pardon.
Another common regret is “We were not with Dad when he died and we always promised we would be there for him.” The fact of the matter is that 24-hour presence at the bedside of the dying person is not possible, and constant attendance at the bedside would have compromised the family member’s own health. The worship leader in the pastoral care role has the opportunity to remind the family members of the reality of the situation and to affirm the high level of visiting that they have maintained throughout the final illness.
Is this the main family grouping or are there other members? I remember being taken on one side at a reception after the service for a well-loved mother and grandmother of several children by one of the children and told, “My wife and I appreciated the words you spoke, but we didn’t recognize the person you were talking about, my mother.” To be on the receiving end of words such as these is not a good feeling! It was a reminder to me that one child, one group of children, or one extended group of family members may have a radically different set of memories, underlying emotions, and family priorities from the family members who contacted you, with whom you visited, and from whose memories and relationship you spoke.
A key question here is, “Are the family members who have contacted you the major family group?” Usually there is no doubt; however, it is good to keep an open mind, and if for instance you find that another family group is writing the obituary, or that the next of kin or trustees are not present, then be prepared to contact them directly.
I often ask, “Are there other family members whom I should contact?” Or noting that one significant family member has been purposely ignored in our discussion, I will ask, “Do you have John’s phone number or e-mail? I would like to be in touch.” If there is a best friend who has been close to the deceased, sometimes closer than family members, maybe an old service buddy with whom the person who died went fishing over the years, then I will ask for contact information and follow up. Someone like this could give the eulogy. Watch carefully though, as some of the stories may need censoring!
Sometimes the need to arrange a service is a great opportunity to get feuding members of a family together. As they reminisce about childhood happenings, holidays, and eccentric characters, there is an opportunity for old animosity to be put on one side and slights to be forgotten as the work of creating a worthy tribute proceeds.
You should not rely on this good outcome happening, however, for long-standing divisions may run deep and not only may the family be unwilling to work together on the service, but the death of a parent and especially the division of family property may intensify rivalries. I was contacted 15 years after conducting a service for a parent by a son of a deeply divided family with a request that made it clear that distrust of one side of the family for the other was alive and well.
There is a need during the time spent with the family to discuss the service format and any requests for music, scripture, or other readings. My experience of non-church families is that they are often happy to leave the choice of scriptures to the worship leader, and this simplifies the process. In this situation you are able to fit the readings, songs, and hymns to the person as revealed in the pastoral situation prior to death or by the family members in the planning conversation. With regard to hymns and songs, they can be those that are familiar to the potential congregation.
A challenge comes when the scripture selection requested is not in accord with the person whom you have come to know when he was dying and/or the hymns chosen were more popular (and relevant to) the beginning of the last century than the beginning of this one. What is to be done? As far as scripture is concerned, you can always have the passage requested by the family read in addition to the passage that you feel is in tune with the person who has died—and be up front with the family about why you are including another scripture. If there is a secular reading that the family would like, then you have the options of having it read before the scriptures or including the reading, or a portion of it, in the meditation. You may also use it at the interment portion of the service.
The same goes for music. The tune of an unsuitable hymn may be played but the words not sung, and there is the option of having the music that is significant to the family members or to the deceased played as the family enters the church or chapel or as they leave. (See “Good Music” in chapter 14 “What Makes for a Good Funeral?”) If there is a strong family wish for a reading or for a song or hymn, I always try to find a way to include it somewhere in the service. Where there is a will there is a way!
With church families, there is likely to be more of a sense of the scriptures and secular readings that the person would like. It is wise to check in the church office to see whether the person who has died has left instructions about the readings and hymns she wanted for her funeral or memorial service. Often there is a Funeral Services file, and if not, it is a prudent move to establish such a file and to invite church members to register their funeral requests for hymns and readings and to talk to you about them.
At one church where I ministered, I was cautioned by a faithful member, Flora, that she would come back and haunt me if the reading, “Gone only from our sight,” was not read at her funeral. It was!
In terms of songs and hymns, there will often be a select number that are known and loved by the congregation and thus sung with heart and soul and voice. It is wise to suggest to the family of church members that two or more of these be used at the service. Some may have special meaning to the faith community. So, at a lakeside church I served, the hymn, “Jesus You Have Come to the Lakeshore,” was a favourite. When it is a church member who has died, it is good to remember that the faith community is grieving the loss as well as the family, and their wishes are to be considered in the service planning.
Traditionally, there are fees associated with a funeral, memorial, or celebration. The minister is usually given a fee and so is the organist or pianist. If there is a technician, she will be paid and so will the person who is responsible for putting the bulletin together. If there is a funeral coordinator, he will receive a fee and if the janitor or church cleaner has work as a result of the service, she will be paid for her time and effort. In addition, many churches charge a fee for the use of the building, which has to be heated in winter and cooled in summer. There may also be catering fees.
It is the responsibility of the church board, council, or administrative body to set these fees, and the worship leader should ensure that the fees are available before the first service she conducts and that they are kept up to date. It will also be her responsibility to make sure that these fees are paid on the day of the service to all those who have a part in the memorial, funeral, or celebration.
Talking about fees is one of the most awkward tasks of the person responsible for the service. Often a family member will raise the question “How much should we pay you for the service, Reverend?” The most satisfactory response is to have a list of fees available on a sheet of paper and respond to the family member with “They are all listed here. Take a look, and if you have any questions, ask me.”
Alternatively, the worship leader should detail the fees or refer the person to the church office where the administrator will have the list of persons to be paid and the fee amounts. Sometimes, there will be no request for fees and fee amounts and then it is the responsibility of the worship leader to inform the family of the persons who have to be paid and the amounts. The fee for the use of the sanctuary is sometimes a surprise for family members, and in this case the worship leader may refer to the heating and cooling and the high costs of maintaining the building.
In some churches there is a difference in fees depending on whether the person who has died is a member of the church or not. I have been the minister of several churches where the fee for the sanctuary has usually been waived for church members. The problem here is the definition of the term “member.” Is an adherent a member? Is a person on the church mailing list a member? Where do you draw the line? The key here is that the issue of what defines membership has been discussed by the administrative body, has been documented, and is available to the worship leader.
Often it is useful for the council or board to sound out local churches in their area about fee amounts before coming to a decision for their staff and building. It is helpful if the fees are reviewed every two years.
Where there is a funeral home involved in the service, it is important that the worship leader checks to see if payment for all fees is facilitated by the funeral home before informing the family of costs. It is also important that current fees for church staff and the sanctuary are communicated directly to local funeral homes and that the funeral home is clear that in the case where their fees are below the church’s schedule of fees, it is the church’s schedule that will be used.
There are times when the family members of the person who has died will not have the money to pay the fees. In this situation, all or the major part of the fees should be waived.
Pastoral Care to the Grieving Family
You come to visit the family at their request to prepare for the service/celebration. This is a significant task and one that has been the preserve of clergy over the ages. You will do the best job you can to make the service liturgy for the person who has died meaningful and comforting. However, there is an unstated task when you meet with the family and that is to enable them to speak of their loss, and you will be ready to provide pastoral care and prayer if this is appropriate. You bring to this task all the skills that you used when you visited the dying person in their home or hospital. You will listen to their words and you will be sensitive to the feelings that different family members have and share between themselves. You will be ready to speak to family members not present, especially grandchildren. You will be ready to speak to any individual who has special needs or refer them to an experienced counsellor or grief group if need be. Only in the situation where you are conducting the service at the direct request of the person who has died and there is another clergy who is responsible for the pastoral care of the family will you let this crucial task go.
It requires much patience, endurance, and skill to stay with the family when the service is over and the friends and wider family are no longer dropping by. In visits with the family, it is important that you continue to talk about the person who died by name and encourage family members to talk of him and tell stories about him. Where a family has lost a child by accident or illness or if the person has taken his own life, the sense of grief is deeper and more acute, so be prepared to allocate more of your pastoral time to families who have lost loved ones in these tragic ways.
You will offer prayer to the family at the end of your time with them. The prayer might be like this:
Eternal God,
we are glad that Ruth is with you now,
is fully loved by you,
and has nothing to fear.
We pray for this family (all names)
as they feel Ruth’s loss from amongst them.
She loved them so dearly; they will miss her so much.
Grant them strength for the days ahead, and especially be with them and with everyone who comes to the celebration on Tuesday.
On that day, may they find old memories
and discover new ones,
old friends and ones they never knew they had.
And may your peace, a peace that embraces Ruth,
be their peace on that day
and in all the days that lie ahead.
In the name of Jesus the peacemaker, we pray.
Amen.
Molly, a widow, was talking to me after the Sunday service about Andy. “He was such a good friend to me, always there when I needed him,” she recalled. “He never let me down. You know, David, every day I miss him so very much.” If you had been eavesdropping on the conversation and didn’t know Molly, you would have been forgiven for thinking that she was talking about her late husband and not her Cocker Spaniel who had many of the faithful qualities that were noticeably absent in Arnold!
It has been my experience that the death of a family pet can cause more grief than the death of a husband or wife, especially where the relationship with the spouse was not a good one. A conversation like this one with Molly is a reminder that as pastoral caregivers and worship leaders we are called to use the same skills in being with those whose pets are dying or have died, as with their human counterparts.
There is a reluctance to formalize the burial of a well-loved dog or cat or bird, yet there is something inherently right in offering to God our thanks for the life of a pet shared over a number of years. Last summer, my wife and I watched our neighbour’s grandchildren trundling what we thought was a toy animal around the backyard in a child’s four-wheeled cart. We found out later that it was the body of a pet cat. It was being shown the places it liked best, where it had played and where it had chased butterflies and hunted birds over many years. A hole was dug and the cat buried following the last garden tour.
For the grandchildren, it was not only a chance to say goodbye to an old friend, but an opportunity to see what happens when a living creature dies and to ask the good but simple questions that only a child will ask: “Mom, will Rover go to a doggy heaven?” and “Will he meet up with grandpa who you said is there?” and “Mom, I don’t want you to die. Will you?”
The burial of a pet is the time for some simple yet heartfelt sentiments to be expressed, and the grieving process to be started. The worship leader can be the one to make this to happen.