Posts Categorized: Marc’s Musings

When I was about the age that Makaila is now, I went to Camp Kandalore near Minden Ontario for a month.  While a month seems like a very long time for a kid to be away from home, I had a cousin who was a returning counselor there and I was quick to figure out… Read more »

When we built the Blenheim Community Funeral Home seven years ago, it was important for us to include the name “Community” instead of our own names because of our broader community-based understanding of funeral service.  We believe that when someone passes away, the whole community is affected by the loss.  We recognize that while we… Read more »

Makaila was sitting on the other side of the desk when I started to write Marc’s Musings this week so I asked her to interview me, to see what things, as a twelve year old she wonders about funerals.  Here’s our conversation: Makaila:  Why did you start being a funeral director? Marc:  I have always… Read more »

When you have kids sometimes you judge the seasons by the school year and so when I think that school is starting in a couple of weeks it feels to me that summer is almost over.  A drive in the country shows that the tobacco harvest has started, some of the seed corn is starting… Read more »

When someone dies, much of the concern that we show is directed to that person’s family, and rightly so.  But there are significant people in everyone’s life who will also grieve a loss…those people who we call “friends”.  Webster’s Dictionary includes the definition of friend to be a favoured companion and in that vein, it… Read more »

Over the past few weeks I have been writing about the ten stages that you will go through when you experience grief.  The first stage is “Shock & Disbelief” which is really a buffer period and it allows you to get your thoughts together.  Second is “Emotional Release” which is the ability to get rid… Read more »

The eighth stage of the grief cycle is called State of Inertia.  This is the time when you will feel like doing nothing; the time when you will be sitting in your car, watching a train come down the tracks and wondering what use there is in carrying on.  This is another stage like depression… Read more »

“Grief” is an emotion that we feel when we experience loss.  Death is only one kind of loss.  Other losses that make us grieve include divorce, losing your job, loss of a pet and so on…all of those things that end the life that we knew and force us to start a new one.  There… Read more »

This is the third week for us to walk through the stages of grief that we will all experience when someone close to us dies.  So far I have touched on Shock & Disbelief, Emotional Release and Depression.  The fourth stage that we will go through is called Psychosomatic Illness.  It is very common for… Read more »

We were sitting in the church before my mother’s funeral.  My son and my nephew, both about 13 at the time were sitting next to each other.  I don’t know who started to laugh first, but between the two of them, it became contagious.  My sister was a bit annoyed at those two boys but… Read more »