Skip to main content

Being part of a community is great!

Beautiful Gift
Reasons to be cheerful!

It is a great privilege to be involved with people, helping them to steer their way through the joyous and the not so joyous events that pepper life.

I am a civil celebrant, I am also a pre school teacher.  In my life I meet all sorts of people and the underlying common denominator is that we all need to be supported through life.  Whether you are confident, happy and full of enthusiasm or not ... a hand on your shoulder, a smile or a comforting voice at the other end of the phone is always welcome.

Since becoming a celebrant I have formed friendships with people who I value and whose jobs and expertise are unfamiliar but who have been welcoming and informative.  People who have shared their knowledge and their experience openly and without agenda.

One such friend is Julia Hill of Silverlode Celebrants.  We have never met but we do the same job and we share quotes and thoughts and support each other.  This morning a box arrived in the post filled with shortbreads, hand made by Julia for me!  All I had done was interact with her .... wow!

Thank you so much Julia - I am really looking forward to trying them.


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weddings with a Difference! Mothers of the Bride and Groom filling the sand frame as part of the ceremony. This summer has been joyous, it has been all about weddings and the celebration of union.  Families brought together by the joining of couples with hand-fastings, sand and candle ceremonies.  There have been many different types of wedding, some quite traditional and others very definitely not. The cast has been roughly the same; the happy couple - often with little children, some with dogs, a pony and a very badly behaved parrot!  Proud parents and grand-parents, emotional bridesmaids in a rainbow of colour, best-men and in one case a best-woman who have delivered speeches that are funny, poignant and blooming cheeky. There have been wonderful impromptu moments that you could not script.  Sunsets and rainbows, a downpour so loud that it stopped proceedings momentarily. I have loved every second of it all - it is a huge privilege to shar...
Post a Comment
Read more

Respect for the Bereaved

In the last year I have conducted all manner of funerals. There have been the timely deaths of beloved people where the ceremony has been one of quiet, or raucous, celebration of a life lived to the full and ended peacefully. There have been tragic deaths through suicide and illness, where the person has been snatched from those that love them in a way that is cruel and heartless.  A cold, bleak time when all you can do is hug the pain into some sort of temporary submission. There have been slow lingering departures where there has been time to prepare and say goodbye, to plan the ending and to tie up all the loose ends, so to speak. I have been in awe of the dignity and composure of both those leaving and those being left.  The stories that I have had the honour of retelling.  The poignant words written by children about their Grandparents. The gut twisting pain of listening to a husband talk of his wife and what she meant to him. The keepsakes that I ha...
2 comments
Read more

The privilege of attending someone at the end of life | End of Life Doula Care

Currently I am supporting a lady as her life draws to a close.  My job is to reassure her through the night.  I arrive at 10 o'clock, she is courteous and appears pleased to see me.  We chat about how she is feeling and I share a few details of my life and what is happening in the world outside her room. I might read to her whilst she prepares to sleep.  Some nights we are up and down quite a bit, I doze on a blowup mattress beside her; it reminds me of sharing a room with a baby.  You relax to a point, but the changes in breathing somehow penetrate your somnambulant state. Last night was extremely peaceful, I find myself writing this journal as I sit beside her.  The room is bathed in the soft glow of a low light, a fan chunters away in the background, dawn is about to break and the day around us is starting. Before she went to sleep I massaged her shoulders and neck with a balm to soothe her pain and provide some warmth and the healing power of ...
1 comment
Read more