SAY THIER NAME nominated for Award

SAY THEIR NAME

A COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS VIDEO

PRODUCED BY BEYOND GOODBYE

More nice news – SAY THEIR NAME has been nominated in the Good Funeral Awards 2013, to be held in Bournemouth on 7th September.    The video, which we made for THE COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS, is in the running for the Best Internet Bereavement Resource and I have to say we are honoured, excited and encouraged by the recognition it has received.

The Good Funeral AwardsNow in its second year, The Good Funeral Awards is actually the brainchild of Charles Cowling who writes, promotes and speaks up on everything do with making sure that the funeral you have is the one you want.      As well as being a consumer guide to the Funeral Industry, Cowlings blog and book “The Good Funeral Guide”  is an advocate for independence of mind, spirit and body, especially if its a dead one.       Interestingly, though the awards are primarily about the ‘funeral world’ with other catagories like ‘The best Gravedigger of the Year’, ‘The best Embalmer of the Year’ and the “Eternal Slumber Award for Coffin Supplier of the Year”, they are also shine a significant light on our understanding of death and patbutcherbereavement in contemporary society.   Its probably true to say that ‘gallows humour’ mixes with serious intent as more than 75 nominees compete for 15 different awards.

This years ceremony will be hosted by Pam St Clement who as many will know starred as Pat Butcher in Eastenders culminating in a brilliant dying scene which touched millions of viewers.

If you haven’t yet watched SAY THEIR NAME you can view it here – SAY THEIR NAME

As we have noted before, we believe the video to be the only one of its kind in this country – made by and for bereaved parents, it gives comfort to the newly bereaved and understanding to their friends and family.

For reviews of the film click  Film reaches out to bereaved parents | Dying Matters – Dying Matters is a broad based national coalition of 30,000 members, which aims to change public knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards dying, death and bereavement.

Click  THE GOOD FUNERAL AWARDS  for more information about this years event.

Anyone fancy going please let us know so we can meet up.

Jimmy

August 2013

WHY DO I SHARE MY GRIEF – a new blog by Mark Oborn

We recently found this blog by Mark Oborn – below is our letter to him
 
 
 

 Coping after the death of my wife & loved one

 

Dear Mark

First off, I’m so sorry about the sudden death of your sweetheart – I do know something of the pain and confusion, the despair and deep anguish you are going through, so I want to send you my own feelings of compassion and love at this time. I haven’t read much of your blog yet but the fact that you are sharing stuff so soon after Claire’s death is, I believe, not just a brave thing but a healing thing too and the hopefully the best way forward. As you say, being public about your grief helps you to feel normal, that you are not alone and from that we can all take huge amounts of comfort.

Our son Joshua died in early 2011 and I too immediately started to write and muse about how my interests in photography could help see me through. I didn’t publish anything at first, but then we started our own website to honour and remember Josh – www.beyondgoodbye.co.uk – and that has led us to get involved with a number of charities dedicated to helping people through grief, and try and get a bit more acceptance in what people describe as our ‘death averse culture’. Have to say it has not been easy, but then it was not really a conscious decision to go ‘public’ with our grief – it just happened cos that’s what we do and we wanted to able able to stay in touch as much as possible with all Josh’s friends – and where better than on-line. The difficult bit has been the way many of our close friends (in the ‘real’ world) seemed to have been scared off but our continual mention of Josh and the public things we have done for him since he died – grief is traditionally seen as a private matter – it does afterall get in the way of life’s day to day business of earning a living, cleaning the car, watching footer, having sex and generally being happy and productive. Or does it? Possibly, but only if you see grief as something in which we shut ourselves away in a darkened room so that we can be miserable all the time. Which of course it is not.  And that said, two and a half years after Josh died and all those difficult feelings that we and our friends have experienced have now begun to ‘normalise’, I think that by not hiding away (although I still do that a lot of the time) we have been able to face fears (for many the worst fear they could imagine – the death of their own child) by sharing them and in doing so all our lives are enriched – at least I hope so.

So thank you for sharing your grief – its not a shameful thing and these days I believe its not such a difficult thing – the internet has given us such great opportunities in this regard – you have made us feel a bit more normal and I hope you feel the same.

with best regards

Jimmy

August 2013

 

read Mark’s blog here         Coping after the death of my wife & loved one