The Southern Cross | November 2024

Few people are comfortable discussing funeral plans with loved ones. What happens if you want Catholic ritual as part of your final farewell but children, partners or family members are disconnected from the Church? Funeral director Natasha Siebert shares her advice.

Natasha Siebert is the fifth generation of the Siebert family to own and operate Frank J Siebert Funeral Directors. She’s seen it all in her time, including confusion over how to honour a loved one’s faith.

“The children or next of kin might have been baptised but they’re disconnected from Church now, and it isn’t part of their familiar space and experience,” Natasha says.

“How, as a parent, do you communicate what you want in a non-threatening, loving way?

“The greatest comfort in the experience of grief is in doing what they wanted.”

Her best piece of advice is to write your wishes down.

“It will ease grief for your loved ones, particularly when kids have different opinions about what mum and dad would have wanted,” Natasha says.

“You solve that problem by writing it. You can simply write it down and say, ‘kids, it’s in the top drawer’ or ‘it’s with my will’. That informal loving act will ease their grief and get you what you want.”

She suggests it can be as simple as writing a letter.

“Put it in a drawer. You don’t have to give it to a funeral director, just write it down, because it will help your family. Do you want a burial or cremation? Do you want it in a particular place? Do you want a religious or a civil service? What do you want to wear? How do you feel about a viewing? How do you feel about a photo eulogy? Do you want donations to go to a particular charity?”

Natasha has helped many people write such letters.

“Their faith matters to them but their kids express their spirituality differently. One letter was from an incredibly churched couple to their nine children, who are incredibly spiritual in their lovely, eclectic ways, but not traditionally. The parents are very traditional. In this letter, they’re giving their children permission to find a way to express their faith in a way they’re comfortable with. They’re actually giving them permission not to have a funeral in a church.”

Having access to written wishes has the potential to completely change someone’s grief experience.

“If you want to do something a bit more formal, funeral directors have forms you can fill in. We call that a pre-arranged funeral; you sit down with a funeral director and make as many or as few decisions as you like,” she explains.

“You can simply say, ‘I want this church and this priest’. Or you can say, ‘I want this church, this priest, this reading, that hymn, those flowers, and I want to be in that outfit’.

“You can do the whole thing. You can do a little bit. You can work on it over time, and there’s no cost for that. Well, there shouldn’t be.”

Siebert funeral home is well versed in Catholic faith and rituals and works closely with local parishes and priests. An order of service booklet preparation form is also available online.

“Let’s face it, the smaller portion of the population know what a Catholic funeral is,” Natasha says.

“When I sit with a family, I’m able to help them understand things: like the preparation of the liturgy is done with the parish and with the priest. You’ve got to have hymns. You can’t have secular music. We have to use musicians from the parish. We break down the parts of a Mass for them, to help prepare them for when they go and see the priest.”

Natasha recently hosted a workshop with the Sisters of St Joseph to encourage them to give some thought to this.

“Many of them are far too humble to consider themselves important so other people or the congregation will make the decisions. Of course, it will always be done with sensitivity and love but current leadership really wants to know what matters to them.”

Natasha told the Sisters, “your life as a religious person is an open letter from Christ”.

“When you became a religious Sister and you adopted that as your vocation, you decided that you were going to be Christ’s love on Earth. Here is your last love letter from Christ to the people who love you.”

She says it’s the same for people of faith.

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