MY STORY
Cynthia is a Certified Celebrant for Funerals. Working with Cynthia as your Celebrant will be as easy as it can possibly be. YOU will be her focus. Making sure YOUR specific needs are met will be her goal. If you want something religious, that can be done. Cynthia is a life-long Christian and certainly can meet these needs. However, if you wish no mention of God, so be it. If you want a mini-rock concert, that can be designed. Blues? Yes. Country? Yes. If your love poetry, she has resources!
Cynthia will lead you through the process and bring ideas for you to think about, review and give a thumbs up or down. She will listen, ask questions, listen and ask and listen some more. She writes what she hears and if time is available at all, you will have the opportunity to review and edit what is said so that it is as close to perfect as possible. If there are friends, co-workers or other relatives you want her to chat with, she will reach out to them to round out the eulogy. She floats around the service and chats to see if there are stories to add in from those in attendance.
She will also help you decide if you want to have a memory gift for those attending, and if you do, what would be appropriate and cost conscious. For example, providing wildflower seed packets might be the perfect memory for someone who adores flowers, an oversized puzzle piece spray-painted silver might be great for a avid puzzler, or candy hits the mark for the grandfather who always made sure every holiday was candy-filled for his grandchildren.
Cynthia weaves the stories into a life story that brings the person to life, brings smiles, tears and laughter to the service. People leave saying it was the best celebration of life service they have been to – ever.
Cynthia is certified as a Christian Grief, Joy Restoration and Life Coach. After losing both her dad and husband the same year, she went through GriefShare, a Christian program for dealing with grief offered by churches. After that, she became a facilitator for GriefShare and offered that program for over 12 years for several local churches.
During the pandemic, she decided to become certified as a coach as well. In her business life, Cynthia was in Human Resources and often provided one-on-one coaching to leaders and employees for improving their work performance. So she already had coaching skills. Cynthia wanted to better understand how to help people on their grief journey. Far too may people get stuck and spend far too long miserable. Everyone’s grief journey is different and there is no specific time frame but you don’t want to be miserable and/or ineffective at work longer than you have to be.
Cynthia can help you move through your grief journey, pay tribute to your loved one in a way that works for you and help you get to a place where you can once again experience joy in your life.