I will assist you and your family to create a funeral service as a fitting tribute to your loved one.

Many people choose to have a simple hymn or two, and even a prayer (like the Lord's Prayer). However, you wish a more secular tribute, we can replace the hymn with CD music and the prayer with readings.

I have many readings for you to browse through and I feel confident you will find one to suit the celebration of life of your loved one.

Many people choose to hold the ceremony at the chapel attached to their Funeral Director's premises. In Ashburton, there are other alternatives, such as Trotts Brantwood Chapel on Racecourse Road. You may also hold the service in a garden, at your home, near a favourite lake or river. This would be discussed with your Funeral Director.

Sample Reading:

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away
into the next room.

I am I, and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we are still.

Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way
which you have always used.
Put no difference in your tone,
wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was,
let it be spoken without effect,
without a trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was;
there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you. for an interval
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.

Canon Henry Scott-Holland

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