What I Do

A Celebrant does more than tell stories.

When people ask what I do I say, “I help sad people feel better.” It’s a simple and short assessment of the facts.

A fuller description is not complicated — but it’s longer.

I am a Celebrant, a non-clergy officiant of life-cycle events – births, marriages, divorces, coming of age parties, retirements, house blessings, bon voyages, and, of course, deaths. As a Celebrant I stand up, stand by, stand and deliver so everyone present feels they are standing together at a significant moment in time.

And most often, I speak for the dead.

When someone dies and you need me, I am the one who comes to your house and hugs you. I ask you questions about your person and get to know them through you.

I ask you questions about you, your family, your community so I can honor what you believe – and what you need – as you say goodbye. I offer you poems and prayers and songs and readings, and we plan an end-of-life variety show in the spirit of the life that is over. I get up and speak to the gathered in a way that allows everyone present to be in their grief – and then find at least a tiny bit of gratitude for all they shared with the person who has died.

I am the one who blesses the body you loved. Who consecrates the ground to hold one so dear. Who makes sacred the place the ashes rest. Who sends words into the wind to carry eternal love into the mystery.

I am the one who walks beside you through the first worst days of sorrow. I help you carry the weight of the sadness and I light a candle in your darkness. We have a very intimate relationship, and you tell me things you’ve never said aloud before.

And as soon as the show is over, as soon as the exit music comes up and your friends and family close ranks to hold you and build on the stories I just told them – at that moment the bubble breaks, and our affair is done. I am the one who knows to walk away, to leave you to the new normal for which I’ve prepared you.

I am the one with the courage to hold you up, and the one with the strength to let you go. I am a Celebrant.