What is a living tribute?

The postcards designed by LV and sent out while our dad was very ill

What's the difference between a living tribute and a living funeral?

We found ourselves creating a living tribute over a 12-month period for our Dad.

Dad preferred this approach to a one-off living funeral event.

[Side note: living funerals do not have to be one-off events, as we posted during the summer, our friend Claire hosted a number of celebration of life events for different groups of her friends & family. Also, living tributes & living funeral ceremonies are not exclusive. You can easily include a living tribute as part of a living funeral ceremony.]

While Dad was still in hospital after emergency intestinal surgery (bad news, it's stage 4 bowel cancer), we decided to do two things:

1) We crafted a bright yellow card invitation, designed by LV, inviting his friends and family to post to him old photos, trinkets, keepsakes, stories & memories to allow Dad to reconnect with people from his life and to reminisce about different eras of a life well lived. And my goodness, there were some tales.

2) We simultaneously commissioned a huge ceramic slipware jar by friend and artist, Carole Glover, that would act as a physical memory jar to house all the post that Dad received. Dad was an avid bird watcher and requested the lesser spotted woodpecker at the centre of the slipware design - one of the only British birds he hadn't seen.

Receiving contact from friends & acquaintances he'd lost touch with gave Dad's last year real joy and meaning. In fact, he said it was the best year of his life! Such is the power of connection. He wrote back to everyone who sent a note or photo or trinket. And rekindled friendships through the living tribute process.

The slow, steady process of filling the memory jar suited Dad, a one-off event could have been overwhelming and potentially awkward for him. However, for other people, a memory jar ritual could certainly be incorporated into a living funeral ceremony (as demonstrated by Grayson Perry's Rites of Passage TV series).

What appeals more to you? Living tribute, living ceremony, both or neither?

#deathwork #deatheducation #deathpositive #livingtribute #livingfuneral #memoryjar #legacywork #legacyproject

Memory jar by Carole Glover