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1. How do you plan a child’s funeral?
Let me start by stating the obvious: No one wants to talk, read, or think about a
topic like planning a child’s funeral. But this blog is all about addressing the
unthinkable, and that’s what I’m writing about today. So, how did we do it? How
do you design an event to commemorate your worst fear? The first thing we did
was eliminate the word “funeral.” Instead we called it a Celebration of Life. That
was 3 months ago today.
As I think back on that day, exactly 3 months ago, I remember that the feelings of
love and support were overwhelming (in a good way). Hundreds of people came.
Family, friends, clients, acquaintances, and total strangers from Minnesota — plus
family and friends flew in from California, New York, Connecticut, Ohio, and
Colorado. One of John’s best friends even used a year’s worth of vacation days to
drive up from Kentucky. The event itself was exactly what we wanted it to be.
We were comforted by positive feedback from the guests as well. Last week I had
lunch with a friend who attended Julian’s Celebration, and she also had recently
attended a funeral for her cousin’s son. She shared with me some of the
differences between the two services: Julian’s Celebration was uplifting and
healing for her, the other one was painful. Julian’s service made her feel as if she

2. knew who Julian was (even though she had only met him a couple of times), the
other service didn’t reveal much about who the child was.
My friend encouraged me to share some details about Julian’s Celebration so
other bereaved parents, like her cousin, might find inspiration and assistance
when they have to do the impossible: plan their own child’s funeral. I’ve wanted
to capture some of those memories anyway, so I started thinking about it.
Let me start by telling you a few things my husband and I did NOT do:
We didn’t call it a funeral. Right from the beginning, we called it his Celebration of
Life. “The Celebration” for short.
We didn’t rush into it. Some people follow a specific schedule for the events
surrounding a death, based on their religious beliefs and family traditions. We
didn’t feel obligated to follow any specific schedule, so we took our time and
planned the event for the date that felt right to us: his 4th birthday. It was nine
days after his death.
We didn’t have an open casket. In fact, we didn’t have a casket at all. We had him
cremated, but didn’t have the ashes at the ceremony. I agree with C.S. Louis when
he said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” Julian’s body
was the container for his Soul, and he didn’t need it anymore. It didn’t need to
play a role in the Celebration, in any form.
We didn’t let anyone take over. At the time of the planning process, we were
surrounded by people who wanted to help us any way they could. It would have
been easy to find some sort of template or find someone to plan the funeral on
our behalf and in many ways would have been easier. But nothing was easy in
those first days. Everything was hard. Given the choice between not-easy
Celebration planning, or not-easy anything else, I chose to focus on the planning.
And I’m glad I did, because the things that initially seemed hard ended up being
surprisingly therapeutic.
And now for the things my husband and I DID do:

3. We were inspired by a Dr. Seuss quote. Someday* I’ll write more about how the
quote presented itself to me in the first place, but the short story is that I came
across a quote that said, “Don’t cry because it’s over… Smile because it
happened.” The fact that it was a quote from Dr. Seuss made it even more
perfect, and we decided to make it the theme of the Celebration. Not because we
didn’t believe that crying is an important part of processing emotions, but
because we wanted the Celebration itself to be focused on what a wonderful gift
he was to us. We wanted to remember his life, and we wanted to smile.
We designed the experience. John and I both have a background in design, and
our business is focused on designing experiences. Even though each element took
effort, I was grateful for the opportunity to apply the skills and strengths that I
have as a creative professional to design the details of the event. Everything I
created — posters, program, slideshow, and a keepsake photo we gave the guests
— was designed with common elements: the Dr. Seuss quote, the little spaceman
illustration from the pajamas he was given in the hospital, and the color red
(Julian’s favorite color).
We asked people to wear red. We wanted the event to be lively and celebratory.
It was so perfect that Julian’s favorite color was red (despite the fact that by the
age of 3, almost all boys will tell you their favorite color is blue). The whole church
was a sea of red, because in every announcement of the event we included this
sentence: “Guests are encouraged to wear red, Julian’s favorite color.” What
didn’t need to be said was, “Don’t wear black.”
We used music throughout the service. Overall, the music was amazing. We
stayed away from sad, melancholy songs (perhaps with the exception of the song
I chose for the photo slideshow — a track from Julian’s favorite CD of lullabies).
The musical highlight was a song written and performed by Molly Dean Anderson,
who also led us all in singing “Happy Birthday” at the end of the service.
We chose speakers who knew and loved Julian, starting with my husband. When
John announced that he wanted to speak at the Celebration, I tried to talk him
out of it. But it was important to him, and he wrote a beautiful message. When it
came time to share his message, he had Oscar join him as he spoke about bravery

4. and what it means to be a hero. My two brothers and John’s sister also shared
touching, beautiful messages about Julian.
We really, truly celebrated his life. The Celebration was held in a church, but the
service was intentionally non-churchy. It was important to us that the Celebration
was focused on our son, not on religious tradition. In addition to Julian’s dad,
uncles, and aunt, we asked two long-time family friends to participate in the
service. First, Georgann Fuller offered beautiful words of wisdom from her own
experience of losing her husband many years ago, and she read a poem that has
become deeply meaningful to me. Later, the “sermon” part of the service (the
Meditation) was delivered by Don Portwood, who has known me since I was
young, officiated our wedding, was with us at the hospital as Julian went in for
surgery the day after his diagnosis, and was at the hospital with us the day Julian
died. Don included a poem by Rumi in his meditation, and it was perfect.
Everyone who participated in the service was clearly filled with love for Julian and
our whole family. The service was truly a “Celebration of Life.”
Source: http://creatingnewnormal.com/2011/06/12/how-do-you-plan-a-childs-
funeral/