Personal Narrative: My Experience At Cruikshank's Funeral Home

Throughout history, people's attitudes towards death have changed. From accepting to death as a natural part of life, to defying the inevitable, the one fact that remains is that we will die. After visiting Cruikshank’s Funeral Home I now have accepted this fact and pondered what will happen for those close to me when I die. A funeral is a time for valuing the life of the deceased, and I now see the value in allowing those within my life to host a service where they can receive closure, and remember what I have brought to the world. This paper will examine the experience I had at Cruikshank’s funeral home and provide insight as to how my attitudes towards funerals has changed as a result. I would never have thought that a single visit to a funeral home would change my view about funerals. Mr.Jackson, a former funeral director at Cruikshank’s Funeral Home, enlightened me as to what funerals really need to be seen as. Mr.Jackson stated that at a funeral “the sorrows of the few become the sorrows of the many”, then explaining that it is a service that allows the community to come to terms with the death and support each other whilst grieving as “grief shared is grief diminished”. He went on to explain that a funeral is a time to honor the life that was lived, and all that the person brought to this world, hence a funeral director must
Despite the differences between people and their culture one thing remains the same, each person will die, and it is how they lived that will be remembered. After visiting Cruikshank’s Funeral Home my perspective on how to people come to terms with death has been changed, and never again will I think that funerary services is an institution simply put in place to take money from the deceased’s loved ones, but now an institution that helps those who live, and all those who have