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A THANK YOU FROM THE MANAGER

At the end of 2017, the James A. Rutherford Funeral Home made a bold move – a departure from what some considered to be the norm. The old, dark and somewhat dingy funeral home on Albert Street was sold, and the business moved into two bright and spacious units across from the Canadian Legion at 804 Ontario Street, Stratford. The funeral home became Rutherford Cremation & Funeral Services having taken over the compassionate care that Heinbuck Funeral Home demonstrated for decades, before many knew who the Rutherford family is.

Before I came on board as manager, at the end of 2018, the first full year of operation as this new entity, I regret only one thing: that the foresight wasn't there to call it Rutherford Cremation, Aquamation & Funeral Services. That pretty much encompasses it all in terms of funeral options in the Ontario landscape.

And while all service options are indeed offered at Rutherford's, I must admit, the misconception of the funeral home as not providing the full range of services to the public anymore because of our move, was a little disconcerting at first – albeit, we've served many families now who know this to be untrue and have carried out their services in the funeral home.

No matter. Something else happened along the way these past years, and for this I am grateful. We became known to a large degree, as the funeral home that extends itself and provides service well before and beyond “funeral day." What do I mean by that? Well, being proactive, it's my belief that a funeral home should provide information that encompasses absolutely all aspects of service concerning death and dying to the public at large – and that the information should empower people to become more forthright in carrying out how they view their wishes, less afraid to ask their questions, bolder in their preparations and more understanding of the whole death journey. Hence, we've done Death & Dying pop-ups in the city of Stratford so people could walk into a neutral space and pick up printed information on dozens of topics, carried out speaking engagements in various venues throughout town and (as you probably know) provide regular information and thought-provoking articles in the Stratford Times and on Facebook.

To that end Rutherford Cremation & Funeral Services has gone out into the public arena to dispel myths and offer information on the types of wills one can prepare, probate and whether it's needed, how laws concerning those who are separated have changed, procedures when a death occurs, cemetery information, funeral options some are completely unaware of and support in grieving well after a funeral is complete – and we'll continue to do that.

The other thing that is no accident, is that we are always going to be a forward-thinking funeral home. The future of the planet and the future of funeral service should go hand in hand. As such we will continue to offer the eco-options as part of your decision making: bio-degradable urns, green caskets and green burials, aquamation, tree-planting, etc.

Friends, I must say, it has been such a privilege. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart – thank you for your encouraging cards, your kindness and open conversations, your reviews of our service and (for some of you) your friendship beyond the service we've provided.

And for James (the benefactor of the establishment) I thank you also for allowing me to run Rutherford Cremation & Funeral Services as I've always wished to run a funeral home – focusing on what it means to provide these services to the community.

A funeral home should empower people with information.

A funeral home is not a retail store – it's a service provider.

A funeral home should provide personal service in any way that benefits those who need it.

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.

THE WEIGHT OF MEMORY

Sometimes, in the late golden glow of the dusk and decaying leaves of autumn, among the dancing colours of the Christmas lights on snow in December or enveloped in the smell of the warm and mossy winds of approaching summer, when the workday has ended and I'm on my way home – I reflect. Who have I served this day whose life has irreparably changed?

The reflections are my way of praying. I join myself to the thought of them and I try to let all good vibrations fly. I know little of their lives. I know even less about what they may be going home to. What I do know is that routine and comfort in companionship, and life in general, has changed.

And I'm sorry for what they're moving through. The unfamiliar forest. Because the life they once shared in, that has been assembled and blended into their own, has turned to a garment of memory to be put on or taken off at the times when living reminders are acute.

And always these meanderings bring me back to those I once knew myself, long ago. My own spirits. Those who I could count on to be there when I walked through the front door, when I didn't need to conjure the magic memory of their smiles – or any memory that made the corners of my own mouth bend upward and the eyes squint. A gesture that fits what I'm seeing right now but is not actually there in front of me. Their laughter, a song above the traffic, becoming simple everyday conversation that blends into the staccato rhythm of the chirping birds when I get out of the car: “See ya." “Love you." “Don't forget."

The pain has left me long ago. Their visits are welcome. They're warm. I speak with them freely now and hear and see responses that are typical. Responses, sometimes, that would have irritated me in the land of all living things, but now serve only to create the smile on my face when I think on them. And I wonder, what is it that their lives were supposed to carry? What are we to carry for others? Comfort? Protection? Money? Self-esteem? If my parents, for example, had died at a younger age from the age at which they did – would the lessons I'd have lost, the years of love I'd have missed, shaped me otherwise? Molded me into some other person I can't even imagine now? Would I have been happy without them?

And all these people, departed from my life and from yours, all the names and information in all the files behind my desk at the funeral home, heavy with history – once shaped the lives of others still walking this earth. What will all of us do with the weight of memory? Keep it to ourselves? Give it to our children? Our grandchildren? Turn it to light or sit with it in our favourite chair and weep? Yes. Until we have made friends with the absence. And then, perhaps... we will only smile, be grateful that we have cared enough to imagine each other's lives again – and hold in our minds, an intonation, a gesture, a colour or smell that reminds us of....

Tiny blessings only.

We'll remember and assemble lives. Use what we need. Learn and strengthen. Like the Japanese art of Kintsugi with its breakage and its healing. Gold lacquer, used to mend ceramics once cracked and fallen apart. Our memories are like that. They are the shimmering spaces between a continuity of life no longer seen. Where the narrative draw is the damage itself, the death, the goodbye. Because the crack it created in our lives is filled with memory – the golden seam, the “golden joinery."

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.

THE RENEWAL YEAR

Nature is perfect. Its persistence. Subtle and inspiring. Mighty, and yet an intimately hidden power. It renews. A flower emerges again and again even from the tiny crack in the concrete. We don't always feel its preparations. We don't always appreciate its dressings in season, before we realize the season is already upon us. When it comes, it comes in a glorious burst, like trumpets. Or it comes softly, like a bow arcing on a violin string, in tiny buds and infinitesimal sprouts along the crust of the earth – becoming seen like music becomes heard over the crest of a hill.

Uninterrupted, the earth and sky embrace to create this music for us. And it never ends.

Nature doesn't argue. Nor does it condemn when it is wounded. It responds because it is fair. It maintains life, harmonious and symbiotic – a mutually beneficial relationship with everything in its midst. It doesn't force harmony with us or with anything else around it; instead revealing itself gently, and in this way, it gives – so long as it is given to. If it keeps giving without return then it suffers, its soul emptied, as ours would be emptied if it were gone.

How are we like it?

Commonplace yet unique, imbued with life and imbued with death like the natural world – it is there that we may look for the similarities. We are part of it, organic and growing. And absolutely everything in nature performs a valuable function. We know this. Plants don't need to be taught, told or search for what to do. They perform their functions automatically. Purifying air. Releasing nutrients. Providing shelter. The only thing we do automatically like that is “knowing" how to be born and how to die. The rest we must learn. And as everything in the natural world does, we too will decompose – the soil our common grave, the air our common spirit. We breathe it in while we walk above the bones of others.

Some of us can't recognize the patterns of our home that nature continuously and incessantly shows us. It is our own pattern. Birthing, thriving, decaying and dying. Constant – year after blessed year that is given us. And nature returns from the stuff of its own decline. A rebirth from the soil of its own decay.

Why shouldn't we?

What is our “soil" then? In what does our renewal sit? Not in the decay of the body. Could it be the firmament of the mind? The stuff, the energy, the spirit that has given us the ability to exalt ourselves through the way in which we choose to think? That is what separates us from all other material things, is it not? Thinking? Conscious awareness of ourselves? If we don't raise ourselves up through the soil of our own poor thoughts and into the light of fruitful and compassionate thinking; what are we but walking stems who choose to shade our own unique gifts and each other out from the enlightenment that makes the soil of our minds fertile?

And you might ask: “Why should our thoughts be fruitful and compassionate?" Well, because we are not alone. As trees have been discovered to be in communion with one another and actively help each other thrive – as much as we feel, believe or think ourselves to be alone, we are not, nor can we ever be. Eventually when we reach a tipping point, we will sink or we will swim, because of the way we all interact. The earth is fertile, or it is full of poison. Once the illusion of “my land," “your land," “my country," “your country" is recognized, the soil of the planet is seen; the soil from which we all thrive physically. Our mind is fertile, or it is full of poison. Once the illusion of “I," “me," “mine" is recognized, the soil of the mind is seen; our common soil from which we all thrive emotionally.

The renewal year is upon us. And once again, the same question sits in the old years chair before we get up out of it: “How will I choose to live this year, for myself and for others."

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.

THE RENEWAL YEAR

Nature is perfect. Its persistence. Subtle and inspiring. Mighty, and yet an intimately hidden power. It renews. A flower emerges again and again even from the tiny crack in the concrete. We don't always feel its preparations. We don't always appreciate its dressings in season, before we realize the season is already upon us. When it comes, it comes in a glorious burst, like trumpets. Or it comes softly, like a bow arcing on a violin string, in tiny buds and infinitesimal sprouts along the crust of the earth – becoming seen like music becomes heard over the crest of a hill.

Uninterrupted, the earth and sky embrace to create this music for us. And it never ends.

Nature doesn't argue. Nor does it condemn when it is wounded. It responds because it is fair. It maintains life, harmonious and symbiotic – a mutually beneficial relationship with everything in its midst. It doesn't force harmony with us or with anything else around it; instead revealing itself gently, and in this way, it gives – so long as it is given to. If it keeps giving without return then it suffers, its soul emptied, as ours would be emptied if it were gone.

How are we like it?

Commonplace yet unique, imbued with life and imbued with death like the natural world – it is there that we may look for the similarities. We are part of it, organic and growing. And absolutely everything in nature performs a valuable function. We know this. Plants don't need to be taught, told or search for what to do. They perform their functions automatically. Purifying air. Releasing nutrients. Providing shelter. The only thing we do automatically like that is “knowing" how to be born and how to die. The rest we must learn. And as everything in the natural world does, we too will decompose – the soil our common grave, the air our common spirit. We breathe it in while we walk above the bones of others.

Some of us can't recognize the patterns of our home that nature continuously and incessantly shows us. It is our own pattern. Birthing, thriving, decaying and dying. Constant – year after blessed year that is given us. And nature returns from the stuff of its own decline. A rebirth from the soil of its own decay.

Why shouldn't we?

What is our “soil" then? In what does our renewal sit? Not in the decay of the body. Could it be the firmament of the mind? The stuff, the energy, the spirit that has given us the ability to exalt ourselves through the way in which we choose to think? That is what separates us from all other material things, is it not? Thinking? Conscious awareness of ourselves? If we don't raise ourselves up through the soil of our own poor thoughts and into the light of fruitful and compassionate thinking; what are we but walking stems who choose to shade our own unique gifts and each other out from the enlightenment that makes the soil of our minds fertile?

And you might ask: “Why should our thoughts be fruitful and compassionate?" Well, because we are not alone. As trees have been discovered to be in communion with one another and actively help each other thrive – as much as we feel, believe or think ourselves to be alone, we are not, nor can we ever be. Eventually when we reach a tipping point, we will sink or we will swim, because of the way we all interact. The earth is fertile, or it is full of poison. Once the illusion of “my land," “your land," “my country," “your country" is recognized, the soil of the planet is seen; the soil from which we all thrive physically. Our mind is fertile, or it is full of poison. Once the illusion of “I," “me," “mine" is recognized, the soil of the mind is seen; our common soil from which we all thrive emotionally.

The renewal year is upon us. And once again, the same question sits in the old years chair before we get up out of it: “How will I choose to live this year, for myself and for others."

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.

CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE

So - 'tis the season once again. For many who observe Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukah, Rohatsu, the Solstice, Mawlid el-Nabi, or any other usually sacred tradition, the recognition of the tradition isn't a terribly daunting task. The experience is something else. Some folks over the years, me included, have at times found themselves in manoeuvres around issues concerning certain holidays, like Christmas – stemming from its “commercialism" to lamenting that it's not what it used to be like when we were kids. And worse, for some, it is a bitter reminder of their loneliness or loss.

I've realized, from personal experience, that fighting the changes in my life that have altered this holiday; taken me away from “how it used to be" and trying to get that back, certainly does not make it more enjoyable. Indeed, less so. Christmas, like anything else in life will inevitably change, if only for the fact that we are getting older and the wonder and magic of it all is now in need of our own creation, rather than simply allowing it to wash over us as we did when we were children. For myself, as a boy, it was as magical as can be, illuminated and sparkling, even in the green and red streetlights at the intersections of the city.

As a funeral director, and after a few failed attempts of my own to hold onto the past, I know that it feels particularly acute when someone dies around such a festive time of year. Similarly, as folks are not desirous about having a funeral service on a family members birthday if they can help it, or a funeral service near the time of a wedding – a death around Christmas time seems to enlarge the wound of the loss.

I remember quite poignantly a few of the Christmas's I've experienced after my father and mother died, how very different they felt. And recently, that first Christmas after my brother and sister-in-law, who I love dearly, moved to BC. And the one after my divorce. It was just more vacant, more reflective. For those who celebrate the time, it can be sharp, simply because the loss is in direct juxtaposition to a time of gathering, a time of joy and goodwill, friends and family.

To help soothe the wound of the loss on any blessed Christmas eve or morn, there are things that can draw those loved and lost closer. I have in past years filled a special decorative wooden box with sand or rice, and for each guest, friend, or family member who I find in my company – they may take a thin tapered candle, stick it into the box and light it in memory of someone they personally love and miss. That way the spirit comes alive in the room at a time when their physical body is missed. The box of candles is set in a place of honour. The candles are allowed to burn down. The traditions of the evening or day carry on.

Perhaps a piece of music that was traditionally played around the holiday can bring a loved one into the room. For my father's spirit, that would be “Christmas Time Is Here" by Vince Guaraldi or selections by George Shearing. Perhaps an empty chair, lovingly decorated and placed in a corner of the room or at the table. For my mother's spirit it would be the use of the traditional forget-me-not tea pot that was handed down through generations. Or a Christmas Eve journal, preserved, written in only once each year.

Whatever is chosen, there is no benefit whatever to putting aside thoughts or traditions that remind one of so-called “better" days or even trying to hold onto them as they were. Instead, embrace them in all their blessed melancholy and create a little something new, to call those you love back into your space. It's all healing. Recognize what you have been given through Christmases past and wherever possible, spread their warm dressings to those around you. And yes – allow whatever joy and whatever melancholy of loss the space to breathe equally. Let both fill the room. Let them embrace in the magic and mystery of the season. The are gifts that are best experienced together.

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.