Bereavement- burying ashes

[ProseccoOnIce]

My dad died during covid & we had a small funeral.

It's bus time for us to bury his ashes in the family plot.

But we have no idea of what to do for the actual ceremony. It will just be mum & siblings.

Thought of perhaps reading a poem, having a little plant pot with his favourite flower next to gravestone.

If anyone has done anything similar or has any ideas, that would be appreciated, thanks

We didn’t do anything in particular, I think we would have felt a bit daft really. We’d already had a funeral. Somebody put the ashes into the ground, can’t actually remember who , and then went home for a cup of tea.

Thanks - we will definitely be low key.

I'll be driving for 2 hours to get there so trying to think of something small but meaningful.

For family we stand in cemetery and say a brief best memory, then off to the pub for a reasonably priced boozy lunch...it's what they would have wanted :)

When it was FIL's ashes, we had a little get-together of his friends and relations. His partner and DH scattered his ashes on the beach/sea of a place that was special to FIL, then we went to a cafe nearby where we'd booked a couple of tables, had lunch and talked about him. It was all quite low key but I think FIL would have been happy with our arrangement.

He is still very much missed, he was well thought of by many

When I buried ashes with my siblings we had planned to just sort of put them in the ground and go.
But nobody felt right just leaving so we sat around the plot for a while and talked about him together, it was nice and felt calm

We played a bit of music and a couple of people said a little bit about them. Then scattered the ashes in a river and sent a wreath down after

The funeral director brought them to be buried and he read out some words to accompany it. I can't remember what they were. It was something he had prepared that I'd read and thought suitable. Some friends came with me. It was low key but the funeral Director was perfect for it as he was just a pleasant unassuming man. Obviously for the funeral I had much more input in choosing words and songs.

Maybe one of you could read a poem or similar? Or as a pp said, those who want to say a few words about your Dad, just a memory or something funny they remember.

You could let off some balloons, with a bye Dad send off, then go and do something he loved to do - maybe a pint at the pub or a sandwich and cream tea.

Did he have a favourite drink you could all toast him with?
You could just have a few moments of silence, then go for a meal together and reminisce about him.
Don't feel you have to say anything at all if it's not 'you' or not your dad's kind of thing.

We scattered at a location that was meaningful to all of us rather than buried, but there wasn't much said that was planned during the actual act of scattering.

We went for lunch afterwards and thats when there were reminisces, a couple of short speeches and the being together and sharing memories which is what we'd really missed out on by having a Covid funeral where not everyone was able to be there, and those that were basically left straight after the cremation due to the limits on mixing.

Please don't do balloons, really bad for the environment and could harm wildlife.

I saw a really nice thing on a TV programme, I think hosted by Grayson Perry (?), it was actually about living funerals but you could easily do it at a 'normal' funeral or memorial ceremony too. Each person brought an object that reminded them of the person or they associated with them, so one person brought a bottle of his favourite beer, another a programme from an event they'd been to together, another a photo of them together, another a book he'd recommended to them and so on. Each person said something about the object, some people only a very few words, others told longer anecdotes etc., according to personality and preference, then at the end they left all their objects in a big urn Grayson had made. If you are having the ashes buried you might be able to include your objects as a time capsule or similar? Or I guess you could just collect them and keep in a memory box for the family?

For my father, we read one of the poems that had been read at the funeral. We also threw in some flowers that had been on his coffin and dried.

Many thanks for the suggestions- there are definitely a few we will take on board.

I might suggest we keep some of the ashes back & scatter them at the beach.

I can think of some music he would like, and a Burns poem.

Some lovely ideas there - thanks