Your funeral does not have to be like anyone else’s...

FUNERALS are usually something that most people don’t really want to think about. The blackness. The sadness. The tears.

It is a very sad time when we lose a loved one. Most funerals I should imagine are basically the same. The hearse. Maybe one or two black cars for family. And a few flowers. I’ve already sorted my funeral out, by the way. Why? Because I can’t stand the thought of our children sat looking at coffins in an undertaker’s place, trying to think what we’d want.

And I have to admit that as far as funerals go, I’m quite alright with what I’ve chosen.

I mean after you’ve been to one funeral you’ve been to them all, right? Well, no! The other week we attended a close friend’s funeral – Sarah Hirst was one of the most kind, funny, loving, people you could ever wish to meet. Sarah loved life itself, and lived it to the full, but unfortunately, on September 17 she lost her battle against cancer after many years of giving it a right good fight.

I must admit that I was really dreading going to this funeral, not just because Sarah was only 48 when she passed, but because she was loved, and she loved so many.

We arrived at the home she was leaving from. Friends and family stood and watched as the hearse arrived and Sarah was taken into the house.

But before the hearse arrived I should have known that something different was going to happen, because our friend Dave was instructing everyone where they could and, more to the point where they couldn’t, park.

Just how much room does a couple of funeral cars and a hearse need, I thought.

After a while the coffin was ready for coming back out of the house. As friends and family stood silently watching as she left her home for the last time.

But hold on! What was this coming down the street?

It was only a stretch white limo, followed by another and another and then a Hummer. Well, I was gobsmacked, in a lovely way.

She’d thought of everything for her last journey to St Anne’s Church, Carlecotes. The same church that herself and Tony, her husband, had been married at.

The Hummer – which was the car for her friends to travel in – had a bottle of prosecco (one of her favourite drinks), and a playlist of all of her favourite songs, that the driver had been instructed to play if her friends wanted it.

These weren’t your normal funeral cars, oh no, but it was certainly what Sarah wanted.

We finally arrived at the small church and entered it to the tune of ‘Get Up on the Dancefloor’ which made us all not only jump, but smile.

The whole order of service had been carefully and lovingly prepared by Sarah herself. Nothing had been left out of the order of service booklets. We laughed, and we cried as we listened to eulogies by friends and family. And bless her she had even wrote and recorded her own song.

There was nothing that she had missed out, right down to her parting words to her husband Tony and her daughter Melissa.

It certainly made us all realise just how lucky we were to have known her. So now I’m going to leave you with something from Sarah’s order of service. Remember the past.

Be thankful for all the memories. Embrace the present. Be grateful for each day, treasuring everything in it. Look forward to the future. Be excited about change and new adventures. Happiness.

It isn’t a destination or possessions, it’s a state of mind.