​What to Do When a Funeral is Not Possible

Use the ideas here to create meaningful ways to honor the dying, the deceased, and the bereaved while physically distant. What you chose to do to honor and mourn a death during this difficult circumstance may provide an important foundation for how your family and community grows stronger going forward.

On This Page

  • Overviews and Ready-Made Resources
  • Creating memorials and rituals
  • ​Using virtual video platforms in lieu of gathering​
Overviews & Ready-Made Resources
General Guidance On Home Funerals and Virtual Funerals:
Video Platforms for Virtual Funeral and Memorial Ceremonies: Funeral homes may offer online platforms for virtual funeral and memorial ceremonies. Other independent vendors and community-based resources are moving quickly to offer structured support as well. Two examples:
​Collective Memorial Rituals 
  • Memorial for Us All: Weekly online community remembrance concerts “honoring and celebrating those who have left us too soon” produced by the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and interfaith communities in NYC. Submit names.
  • Faces of COVID:  A Twitter account publishing stories of those who died from COVID in the belief that "They were more than a statistic." Submit a story.

Sample Ceremonial Content to Adapt 
The following websites offer free ceremonial resources, such as poems, songs, hymns, quotations, prayers, and other elements for families to use in physically-distanced ceremonies now or ceremonies deferred to a later time:
Ritual and Ceremony Along the Spectrum of Time
Even in the best of times, no one ritual or ceremony meets every need. Consider simple, thoughtful ways to honor the dying, the deceased, and the bereaved even without physical presence:
  • In anticipation of a death
  • When death occurs 
  • At the time of burial or cremation
  • Down the line when gathering in groups is possible
 
Ideas for What You Can Do Apart/ Together (scroll down for links to other organizations' tips)
  • Organize ways for your family and community to connect online
  • Where folks don't have internet access or prefer not to use online connection platforms, consider synchronized actions that everyone can do at the same time in dispersed locations: for example, lighting a candle, reciting a poem or prayer, singing a song or playing a piece of music, everyone stepping outside (or opening a window) to speak a name aloud
  • Find creative ways to be close without physical proximity, to be in touch without touching, to gather with meaning and love
  • Explore connection through holding hands over hearts, eye contact, speaking from inner calm
  • Where possible, work to slow down and open hearts to create a sacred place of honor within the larger context of societal and personal crisis
  • Create a round-robin process through email or phone/video chats to involve other loved ones in story-telling about the person being honored:
    • Inspiration: A customized Litany of Remembrance that captures the details of a personality in a collective pledge to keep their memory alive
    • Inspiration: Bill’s story where an online process helped his community distill and communicate the gifts of his life and blessings for his dying time
    • Inspiration: A eulogy for a father who died without a funeral or memorial service, composed 10 years later using condolence notes collected at the time of his death
  • Create a quiet ritual that can be done solo or within your household, perhaps using a physical artifact from the person’s life, or dedicating a space in your dwelling or yard to honoring them:
    • Inspiration: Peggy’s story of a solo walk into the woods to memorialize her father
    • Inspiration: Amber’s story of a nature walk coinciding with the time of her father’s cremation
    • Inspiration: David’s story of his widow creating a place of remembrance for him in her new house
    • Inspiration: John’s story of folding origami cranes to honor victims of war, continued through his own dying time
  • Planning in-person memorials for a future time when folks can gather in person once more may provide some comfort and focus, even if logistical details remain uncertain:
    • Inspiration: Caity’s story of involving her community to honor her mother’s cremated remains in dispersed locations (cremated remains are sterile)
    • Inspiration: Charlotte’s story of spending a year helping her mother plan a memorial celebration for her stepfather eight years after he died
    • Inspiration: Kathy’s story of a memorial “re-do” 19 years after her mother’s death

Ideas Compiled by Other Sources