Blog 3- Pure Joy

Carin Bonifacino • May 11, 2023

Flowers as Medicine for the Heart and Mind

I am a fan of flowers. Everyone is different but, personally, I can’t imagine anything more appropriate, healing, or uplifting after a death than bouquets or arrangements of fresh flowers. In my book, they are pure joy, and when I have received them after a loss they gave me so much more value than whatever the person paid for them.


If you’ve experienced the death of someone close to you, whether a family member or a friend, then you may know how desolate it’s possible to feel.
If the loss was sudden or violent or tragic, then you may know how unfair or mean or truly scary the world can seem. If you didn’t get to say good-bye to someone or if their dying involved a lot of suffering, then you may know how it feels to carry grief that feels like physical pain, that feels sharp, that needs a salve of some kind.


Enter flowers. I am not saying that they will magically take all the pain away. But I am saying that they are medicine. They are medicine for the mind and heart. They are medicine for our weary souls and grief stricken spirits. Beauty is medicine, my friends. Innocence and joy are medicine. Where only sorrow can be found, they offer themselves as antidote. They offer their color, their shapes, their light, their energy as evidence that the world is still a beautiful place and as evidence that life continues and will go on.


I know many people feel that flowers are a “waste.” “They’re just going to die,” you may have heard folks say. And while each grieving person may not need fifty flower arrangements at their house or at a service, I would never say that flowers are a “waste.” Rather, I would say that they are essential - essential components for beginning to restore hope where hope may be lost; essential ingredients for uplifting hearts where they are downcast; and essential elements because they are of the earth, and we are of the earth, and they offer themselves to us as salve for our grief. 

Blog 10 - Sifting Through Your Life

By Carin Bonifacino • 05 Feb, 2024
But I’d like to pose a question to you - what if you wrote your own obituary? What if you wrote it right now? Today? How would you sum up your life thus far? What would be the highlights? As you look back, what would you say has mattered most and what’s been most meaningful? If you could write any last words to the people you love, what would they be? To whom might you express gratitude and to whom might you impart advice?

Blog 9 - Music to a Grieving Person's Ears

By Carin Bonifacino • 04 Dec, 2023
Something that I like to remind people, when I’m officiating a funeral or memorial service, is to continue to reach out to those most deeply impacted by the loss, in the weeks, months, and years afterwards. I like to remind them that you can’t make a person “more sad” by mentioning the name of the person who died and in fact, you will have the opposite effect. By saying the name of the person who died, you will make a grieving person happy.

Blog 8 - The Service is the Medicine

By Carin Bonifacino • 03 Nov, 2023
In the modern era, many people have forgotten what the reasons are for having a funeral, memorial service, or celebration of life. As more people move away from traditional religion and as we as a society have less and less experience in the realm of death and dying, the necessity for a gathering of some kind after a loved one’s death, can seem unimportant. “It’s not going to bring the person back,” some might say. “It’s just a lot of formality,” others might say.

Blog 7 - A Proper Send Off

By Carin Bonifacino • 18 Sep, 2023
When Danny was born his parents were overjoyed. They could not believe how precious he was, how perfect. They kissed his fingers and toes and loved him as the beautiful new being that he was. Baby Danny was welcomed into their extended families with much jubilation.

Blog 6 - Enter, Green Burial

By Carin Bonifacino • 27 Jul, 2023
Let’s start with a visualization exercise: I invite you to imagine a wildflower meadow. It is a mix of grasses and tall flowers. The flowers are yellow and white and purple and all around this field are dancing butterflies and busy honey bees and, occasionally, birds swoop by to snatch an insect from the air or to pick some seeds from a plant.

Blog 5 - The Electric Slide

By Carin Bonifacino • 05 Jul, 2023
Despite what many people think, there are no rules when it comes to holding or creating a funeral or memorial service for someone you loved. None. I have officiated services in churches and funeral homes, in parks and country clubs, under tents in a field and in living rooms and backyards.

Blog 4 - Going the Distance

By Carin Bonifacino • 21 Jun, 2023
When Jerry’s wife died, he knew he wanted to be at the funeral home when her body was cremated. He and Sharon had started out as high school sweethearts. Over the decades, they had two children together and had supported and loved one another through all the ups and downs that life can bring - career changes, moves, and the illnesses and deaths of both their parents.

Blog 2 - Grief is Patient

By Rev. Carin Bonifacino • 12 Apr, 2023
When my husband died in 2014, his loss was sudden and unexpected. It blindsided us all - his family, friends, co-workers, and extended community. He was young and it was tragic. As a widow, my main focus was on my children who were 12 and 14 years old at the time.

Blog 1 - The Love

By Rev. Carin Bonifacino • 24 Mar, 2023
When I was in my early twenties, studying plants and learning how to grow things for a living, I had no idea that three decades later, I’d be officiating funerals and memorial services and writing eulogies for a living. I had no idea that my own personal losses would put me on a trajectory to work with grieving people and to spend time with them, asking questions, and learning about the lives of their loved ones.
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