Don't take my word for it...
"What!!....You have encapsulated everything, what incredible writing skills and listening skills.
We were streaming with tears and laughter reading this with a coffee this am. Rachael, I can tell you now, this is utterly brilliant work, I thank you so so much for me and my Mum."
"Just to say thank you so much for my husband's celebration of life ceremony - it was absolutely amazing.
Everyone said it was as if you had known him all his life. It was just beautiful - outstanding even."
Hi Rache
I need to say that you were amazing on Tuesday. You came across as Kim’s bestie who had known her closely for a lifetime. The story narrative was perfect and you tailored everything in beautifully. I found it very hard to think I could do my eulogy and had many tears in the build up to the service but you inspired me to be strong and do Kim proud as we all did.
Scores of people have spoken to me or texted me to tell me how wonderful the celebration was and indeed how excellent you were. Many people said they had been captivated, and that the long service had gone over in a flash as they had been emotionally invested right from the start.
I can’t thank you enough for your meticulous planning, your thoughtful leadership of us all, your instinctive insight into Kim her personality and her life . You were absolutely spot on. Because of the wonderful celebration of Kim’s life which you created with gentleness, humour and wisdom we were all able to leave the peaceful setting of Mountsett inspired, happy to have had Kim in our lives.
It enabled us to celebrate her life further at the reception. We had a lovely fitting wake at the Falcons where Kim was the centre of our conversations and was remembered with love and awe.
We will miss her terribly but you gave me such closure on the toughness of the last 5 years of living with dementia because you helped us celebrate the amazing incredible life of Kim. You were incredible!
Thank you Thank you Thank you - Andy, Kim's husband.
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Thank you so much Rachael for conducting my daughter Zoe’s humanist funeral on Monday. I know she bonded with you immediately (a kindred spirit), and trusted you, in her words, to “do a good job”. As usual she was absolutely right! It gave us great comfort to hear her story delivered by you in such a beautiful way". Olwen, devoted mum of Zoe .
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"My late wife, Zoe “found” Rachael last October. Or, at least, that’s how it felt - and how it feels, now that Rachael has helped us celebrate Zoe’s life by leading her funeral service. Zoe had a feeling about Rachael even before she met her, despite only having Googled her.Her instincts were, as so often, spot on.
From the moment they sat down in our home - with Zoe fresh out of hospital and a few weeks on from a terminal cancer diagnosis - to discuss her life, family and her wishes for her send-off, a natural rapport between them was obvious. Several hours later, the deal was sealed. Zoe had her celebrant.
She’d actually made her mind up within seconds of Rachael arriving. Such was the immediacy and strength of Zoe’sinstincts re Rachael that she agreed to record a video message (on Rachael’s iPhone) to be played at her funeral that same day.
Despite six months passing between then and Zoe’s death, she never had a moment’s worry that Rachael would lose sight of the type of service - or the feel of the occasion - that she wanted. Zoe wasn’t wrong.In short, that was because Rachael had “got” Zoe completely in these few hours together. That much was clear from the wonderful narrative of Zoe’s life which she put together.
However, Rachael brought far more than just a beautifully told life story to Zoe’s service. She wrote and delivered a wonderfully comforting introduction which focused everyone on the sad background to the occasion, while inviting them to still celebrate a life well lived. Rachael also lent practical and emotional support to those of us who were to speak during the service. But, arguably an even greater blessing than any of that was the understated but natural warmth which she brought to proceedings as a whole.
Countless people have since told us that the service was the most personal and uplifting of any funeral they had attended. Rachael was an utterly essential factor in that. As a family, we will simply never be able to properly thank her or adequately express the comfort that her involvement in an ultimately deeply distressing process gave to us.
If you are considering a humanist funeral service, I simply cannot recommend Rachael enough. She will do you and your family as proud as she has us". - Neil, Zoe's husband.
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"Hi Rachael. I wanted to message to say an enormous thank you for yesterday. I would go as far as saying that the whole day was perfect. So incredibly fitting for mum, and I know she would’ve have been watching it and smiling. The feedback from those who attended has been astounding, I don’t think people could quite believe how amazing it was. Thank you for doing justice to mum’s unique life - you are brilliant xx" - Adam, Kim's son.
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"We wanted to thank you again for doing such a lovely job for mum’s funeral. She was so unique, and you really managed to capture her personality with your writing. In fact, both our parents were very different to your typical mum and dad in many ways, and completely chalk and cheese from each other, but you really captured them both. Though not under happy circumstances, it was lovely to make your acquaintance."
"Thank you Rachael for all your hard work and beautiful presentation on the day.
Everybody was full of compliments and I agree that it was the best funeral ever!"
"The important process of mourning my Dad was greatly eased for all our family by finding Rachael at Grand Goodbyes through a friend's recommendation.
From our first Zoom call Rachel very clearly showed caring, empathy and genuinely took the time to learn as much about my Dad's character and all his many exploits.
She received numerous letters and emails from all our family with additional tales of my Dad, which Rachael somehow expertly managed to squeeze in, to what turned out to be the most accurate and beautifully written Eulogy of him. On the day of the funeral Rachael read out my Dad's script and eulogy with kindness and compassion, to our small gathering of close family.
It really was comforting reliving fond memories and happier times and ultimately helped to give us all some much needed closure. Her creative writing, great command of the English language, along with her professionalism and caring from start to finish, will always be remembered by myself and my family.
Thanks again Rachel for helping us give my Dad the best send off we could have hoped for through such crazy times."
"I just wanted to drop you a quick note to say thank you very much for the beautiful ceremony you performed for mum. It was perfect.
I have had so many messages from family and friends that watched it online who said it was a really beautiful service and summed mum up to perfection."
"Rachael gave me, my mother and sister the most incredible farewell to John, our father and husband.
Words really cannot explain Rachael's gift, not only for language and listening skills, just full of humour which we all need at the passing of a son, father and so much more. The Eulogy while happy / sad encapsulated everything we could ever have wished for. This lady has compassion and whit and intelligence beyond her years and tree of life earrings. Give her a whirl we did! And we will always be indebted to her for a job (passion and joy) done so well. Rachael went the extra mile and we will never forget making the hardest day of our lives bearable."
"I lost my wife, Amy, earlier this month following a short and devastating battle with cancer. Despite all the challenges that the COVID restrictions imposed Rachael was able to bring out Amy's whole life story so that it could be celebrated fully during her memorial service. Our three young children felt totally at ease talking to Rachael about their memories of their mum and both myself and Amy's mum got all the support we needed to talk about Amy - her life and the person she was. Thank you so much Rachael - you have really made such a huge difference: bringing much-needed light in a time of darkness. I could not recommend Grand Goodbyes highly enough."
I would like to thank you for the lovely service we had for mum on Monday.
We found you to be very approachable and open to ideas. Your presentation was excellent and you made everyone feel comfortable and at ease including the children during the service.
You had some great ideas , especially for the children such as writing messages or drawing a picture in a card. Everyone felt they could take part if they wanted to.
I feel we actually had a celebration of life that was more of a true reflection of mum and us as a family. I feel that with your help we had the confidence to not just follow tradition but had the service that we actually wanted to have.
"I just wanted to pass on all our thanks for the wonderful script that you prepared and read at Mum's funeral last week.
Everyone has commented on how lovely it was that it was a celebration of her life with a lovely life story of love and laughter at such a sad time. You do a wonderful job at such difficult times in peoples life's but we all felt so comfortable during our meeting with you and you will always be remembered as part of our journey. Many many thanks."
