Is it okay to laugh at a funeral?

Many people go to a funeral holding their breath. You dress in dark clothes, speak quietly and wonder what you are allowed to feel. And then someone tells how this person was never on time, and the whole room laughs through tears.

Why laughter belongs to a farewell

A person is not their CV. They are the small things everyone knew: the key that was gone yet again, the food that did not taste good despite great effort, the quarter of an hour you always had to allow for.

Stories like these do not make anyone smaller. They show who this person really was. When everyone laughs at the same time, they are back for a moment. And that is exactly when you feel how much they are missed.

Laughter and grief are not opposites

Grief is not an even state. It comes in waves, and in between there is room for warmth. A ceremony may reflect that. I do not try to take the grief away from the mourners. I also want to give back to them what was so beautiful.

Often the silence after the laughter is the deepest point of the whole ceremony.

How humour does not hurt

Not every story belongs in front of everyone. These questions help me when I write:

• Would this person have laughed about it themselves? If so, it is usually right.
• Are we laughing with them or at them? Love has to be felt in the story.
• Does it hurt someone in the room? Whatever touches old pain stays outside.
• Was the death hard or sudden? Then more care is needed, and sometimes little or no humour at all.

How the ceremony can carry it

Humour needs a frame. After the laughter I give the grief room again, with music, with voices from the family or with a ritual that includes everyone. When, for example, everyone takes a stick in their hand, thinks of this person, gives thanks in silence and places the stick in the fire, then the heavy belongs just as much as the light.

If you are planning a ceremony right now, do not only tell me the big things. Also tell me what you always had to laugh about with this person. There is more about the farewell ceremony at Bagtun here, and you can also reach me at short notice by phone or message.