Page 12 - Trending Magazine 2018 Spring

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“When you live well,
you have to die well.”

chemo would affect his fingers more so he couldn’t
play the guitar,’” Marci said, laughing at the memory.
“I hated it, but I knew it meant so much to him.”
They packed the church and the lobby with these
mementos.
“It was just all about him, and it was pretty special.”
Val Morris of Glenboro honoured her husband John’s
love of fishing at his send-off.
He was a good fisherman, and Val has proof: a 42 cm
jack fish visible in the basement trophy room.
When he suddenly died in 2017, it made sense to
honour this aspect of his life. His ashes would be
placed in a fishing box he lugged for some 20 years.
“I thought he’s not going to be wanting to be put in
some vase or something, he’d rather be in a fishing
box,” Val said.
———
When Buchanan started in the funeral business 39
years ago, he offered a box. Brent Buchanan is a funeral director at Memories Chapel
on 18th Street North in Brandon.
“We didn’t sell services or service fees… we sold a
casket and everything was included in the price of a
casket,” he said. “But now with cremation and that there’s a block. It’s growing where people are not
merchandising, we’ve had to go to a service-based thinking they need it, but you can talk to all kinds of
model, which is the way we should have been in the grief counselors about the value that comes with
first place.” some sort of ceremony.”
Michael Gibbens, president of the Manitoba Funeral The importance of some kind of a service has
Service Association, said the average price of a casket extended to our pets, explained Karen Gardiner, who
burial is $5,000-$7,000 and $4,000-$6,000 for runs Peaceful Valley Pet Crematorium outside Virden.
cremation. “These pets, for most people, are family. They’re not
Those cost estimates do not include the price of a plot just a pet, they’re not just an animal, they’re not just
or niche, the actual digging of the grave or the opening disposable; they want a proper ending for them.”
or closing of the niche, catering or publishing the ———
obituary. As such, the price can jump thousands of Marci Crisanti has mulled the particulars of her own
dollars more. funeral.
Funeral homes are often blamed for this cost, he Rather than hearing bleak music, she wants the up-
acknowledged, but said there are numerous aspects tempo ballad, “What a Wonderful World,” to be
they don’t have control over. played, she has told her family.
While the prospect of grief can be scary, Gibbens “I was always brought up that it had to be very, very
wants people to hold services going forward, even if religious, and deep in meaning and that it wasn’t
the ceremony is small and cheap. proper to smile because that was maybe considered
“As far as funeral professionals look at disrespectful,” she said, “and now I think I want my kids
it, we just hope they do something,” and my family to think if you tell a joke at a funeral, or
he said. you make people laugh, that’s OK.
“We get together for so many “There’s lots of time for tears after — and you do, you
events, be it weddings, anniversaries, cry a zillion tears after that day — but if that day you
birthdays and graduations, but when could tell one story to make people laugh, it’s OK to
it comes to funerals, it seems to be do that.”

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