Celebrants have long been the person to call when a loved one dies . . . in Australia and New Zealand. But now there are 1,500 individuals in the U.S. and Canada who have been trained to provide unique, individualized services and life tributes for loved ones and their families.

Who Needs a Celebrant?

Celebrants are ideal for families who:

Oprah says that “Every single death is an invitation to live more fully.”

When you have experienced a divorce you not only lose a partner but you may also lose your identity. No longer can you define yourself as the “spouse of” and do things married people do.  You grieve what was lost and start to redefine yourself. During this process it is important that you do things that give you solace and comfort as part of your healing process. It is easy to get into a pattern of negative thinking so reframing to a positive focus can help you stay motivated to keep moving forward.

Parents often remark how quickly their children grow up. They think back to their once lovely, energetic, helpful little charge and remember with fondness all the reasons that they thought this special being was wonderful and tender. Parents may also look back to a time that this tiny person looked at them as a source of heroic greatness, and gazed with intrigue, amazement, and interest at everything the older, wiser, magical parent did.

Until one is a parent of a child with a chronic medical condition, one can never know the daily challenges and sacrifices under such circumstances. However possible it is to overcome the heartache knowing your child will never have a “normal” life, one lives day to day hoping for some relief and a miracle. What most parents take for granted in healthy children become monumental steps in the chronically ill child. Being able to sit, crawl, walk, or eat without assistance become milestones for such a child. 

The older we get, the more likely we are to have to provide some level of care to our aging parents. For some, this is an easy transition and an opportunity to deepen a lifetime of good memories. For others, however, it can stir up very painful, unresolved feelings and old resentments. Even under the best of circumstances, caring for our aging parents can stretch our emotional, financial and physical resources to uncomfortable levels, leaving us more vulnerable to physical and mental health issues.

A few years after the sudden death of our daughter, Kristen, from an undiagnosed metabolic disorder, I was going about some tasks when I was once again reminded that,  feeling uncomfortable about the topic of death, people can say or do amazingly insensitive things. I happened to be writing a check at the store when the cashier noticed Kristen’s picture in my wallet. She proceeded to ask how old she was and I stated that she would have been 5-years-old but that she had died at 21 months. She quickly responded, “Better at 21 months than 21 years.”