Choose your own charity in lieu of flowers
When I attend a funeral, I always make a donation in lieu of flowers to the charity recommended by the deceased. However, is it ethical to donate to an organization whose mandate I don’t believe in?
Recently, my friend died and the charity she named encourages distressed, pregnant women to find alternatives to abortion. I personally believe there are circumstances where abortion is the right choice and, when that is the woman’s decision, it is not right to talk her out of it or make her feel guilty. Should I make the donation or just send flowers?
Back at the start of my clergy career, I hated funerals. It wasn’t the emotions involved, nor the challenge of finding the right things to say; I could mostly handle that. What I couldn’t do was breathe.
Back then, a funeral bore striking resemblance to a flower show and, for those of us with allergies, it was brutal. I was always caught between taking so many antihistamines that I nodded off during my own oratorical masterworks, or skipping the pills and sounding like Elmer Fudd: “May he west in peace.”
The histaminic overload of these occasions was a lesser concern than the problem of what to do with the florae and foliage when the funeral was finished. A few went to the gravesite and we could usually unload a couple of arrangements at the local nursing home — although, strangely, funeral flowers do little to cheer up a roomful of 90 year olds. I even used to bring roses home to my wife but when the presence of posies led her, inevitably, to ask “who died?” the bloom went off that rose.
So the day after many funerals, dozens of arrangements, worth hundreds, even thousands, of dollars, went in the dumpster. And that seemed just wrong.
As a result, many families began suggesting a charitable donation in lieu of flowers. Often, the beneficiary was the hospital in which the deceased had spent the last few days of his life — a designation that, quite frankly, stuck in the craw of charitable organizations that the deceased had supported their whole lives.
So, families began offering multiple suggestions; perhaps the hospital, together with another cause important to their loved ones.
But the key word is “suggestion.” There is nothing mandatory about supporting the causes a family recommends. And no, you shouldn’t donate to an organization whose work you dislike. This is, after all, your gift, not hers, and it makes no sense to give money to an organization whose work seems ethically anathema.
But don’t send flowers either; that’s just a cop-out you’re falling back on for lack of a better idea.
You were friends with the deceased, so you must have had some shared interests. So find a cause — whether a political party, church, animal shelter — whose activities reflect those mutual concerns.
Make the donation a generous one; if the flowers you would have sent were worth $150, that’s a nice amount for the donation as well. Then notify the family directly of what you have done.
They won’t care that it’s not the charity they recommend. They’ll breathe deeply and be grateful you took the time to think this through and do something appropriate. Send your questions to star.ethics@yahoo.ca.