A Funeral to Remember: Send in the Clown

With baby boomers leading the trend of personalized funerals, Professional Clown Kate Smith is joining the Celebrant movement to help them get what they want.

Smith joins more than 1,200 Certified Funeral Celebrants who have been trained by the In-Sight Institute to listen to stories from a grieving family. The Celebrant guides the family through the funeral process, creating a personal service that reflects someone's life story and personality.

Smith, who recently became a Certified Funeral Celebrant during training in Seattle, Washington, has been interested in the death experience for years.

"I have been working at a children's hospital as a professional clown for 10 years and this work has taught me how to walk the fine line between joy and grief," Smith explained. "After a beloved's funeral, I had many thoughts about how empty and dishonest it felt. I wondered if there was a way to speak to all of the person, both virtues and vices. So I've been thinking about how to do this: How to make not only a meaningful experience for families, but perhaps a more honest one. I think art can achieve this."

"I am a clown and I believe this spirit is natural to death, meaning that in good clowning, you have some of the same elements that you might like to have in a death ritual: genuine human connection, truth, sadness, and yes, humor," Smith said.

She believes that both laughter and tears help us access and remember all of the stories of someone's life. "Clowning is, among many things, ultimately an intensely spiritual experience. Spiritual means connecting, and the most important thing for a clown to do is to connect with her audience. From there, we move into the elements of self-parody, heightened physicality, larger than life, vulnerability, and humor. These elements belong at important passages in life. I've playfully given myself the title of Clown Bishop," Smith said with a smile.

"Perhaps we should take the opportunity as a memorial service offers to get connected with one another, make an artistic statement about a life, even allow us to think about what we want to say about ourselves and our lives, at the end. Maybe this can help us move closer to not being so afraid of that inevitable friend, closer to fully living our lives."

Smith's hospital clown work has gifted her with some pretty profound and amazing moments. Now, she is encountering similar moments in funeral service. "I conducted a memorial service recently for a woman who died from cancer," Smith said. "I met with the family and made a special connection with her mother. I found out the decedent's favorite color was peach and bought a shirt that color to wear under my velvet black coat. I also bought five peach helium balloons, not knowing how they would be used. After welcoming comments, I asked everyone to hold hands during a selected song. In the eulogy, I referred to her mother as 'the one who birthed her,' a way to acknowledge the connection she and I had made. After the eulogy, the son and the daughter followed with some thoughts."

"Being naturally drawn to children, I tried to find ways to connect the eight-year-old grandson to the service but he was too shy. At the end of the service, he sat in a chair and cried, his little friends surrounding him. I saw my opportunity---I raced to the back of the room and grabbed the balloons I had tied to the table and brought them to him. 'Will you be the keeper of these balloons? And, when everyone goes outside, you give one to each of your friends. Then, you all let them go at once, okay?'"

The little boy lit up with this special responsibility.

Smith made her last connection with the mother by chance. As she was leaving the service, the mother was sitting in her car and they caught eyes. The mother immediately rolled down her window and thanked her for such a wonderful eulogy for her daughter, who was her last living, and now gone, child.

And Smith's own funeral?

"The idea of a clown at a funeral came easily to me through thinking about what I want at my own funeral," Smith added. "Of course I'll want clowns! Especially all the children I've taught clowning to over the years. Yes, I want them to dance in a procession."

For more information on Celebrant Kate Smith e-mail badjoy@earthlink.net or call (206) 713-1524.

For more information on the In-Sight Institute or Celebrants visit www.InSightBooks.com or call 1-800-658-9262.

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