Karen Dempsey

Pushing it down never really helps.

False.

Oh, the trimmings.

It doesn't matter.

People stress so much about the candles and the ribbons and the... Sweet carts.

Sweet carts, yeah.

Once you have your two people, everybody else is a bonus.

Everything else is a bonus.

god there's so many things the breaking into song and the finding of meaning in tiny things is it possible to have a genuinely funny funeral

Yes, it is.

People sometimes want that in a funeral.

But I will say we have to remember that it's always deeply sad as well.

So very often it comes from the dying person who say, I don't want any of you crying at my funeral.

I want you to have great crack.

And families will go to great lengths to do that.

But I remind them that it's OK that the sadness is going to be there anyway.

You know, that's OK, too.

And sometimes that even is enough of a relief for them to be able then to move into the celebratory piece.

So my background is nursing.

I was originally a nurse and I did hospice home care.