Pet Memorials: Honoring the Companions We Love

Pet Memorial Pet Remembrance Tee Rogers Pet Funeral Director

Tee is an IAOPCC Certified Pet Funeral Director, and InSight Certified Funeral Celebrant, and a certified Humanist Celebrant.

Losing a beloved pet can be one of the most profound losses we experience. For many of us, our pets are family, companions, and even emotional support. While grief for pets is deeply felt, society often doesn’t give us permission to mourn them as openly as we might a human loved one. Pet memorial ceremonies are a powerful way to honor their lives and the unconditional love they shared with us.

Why Pet Memorials Matter
Creating a dedicated space and time to remember a pet is an important step in the grieving process. Memorials give us an opportunity to reflect on the joy our pets brought to our lives, connect with others who understand the depth of our bond, and begin to heal.

Creative Ideas for Pet Memorials
As a Certified Pet Funeral Director with the IAOPCC, I’ve learned how meaningful personalized pet remembrance ceremonies can be. Here are some unique ways to honor your pet’s memory:

  • Memory Walks: Organize a walk along your pet’s favorite trail or park, sharing stories and memories along the way.
  • Pet Cemetery: Graveside service and burial in a final resting place, whether a dedicated pet cemetery or a pet memorial area of your property.
  • Memory Keepsakes: Incorporate items like their collar, a paw print, or their favorite toy into the ceremony.
  • Plant a Living Tribute: Plant a tree or flowers in their favorite spot in the yard as a lasting memorial.
  • Art and Creativity: Commission a portrait, create a scrapbook, or write a poem that captures their spirit.
  • Candlelight Ceremonies: Invite friends and family to light candles and share a moment of silence or reflection, or share a story.
  • Scattering Ceremony: committing your pet’s ashes in a place they loved to play, or in a place that has special meaning in your relationship with your pet.

How a Celebrant Can Help
A Celebrant composes, choreographs, and officiates a ceremony. An end-of-life ceremony (for a person or a pet) serves an essential purpose: to celebrate the love and light they brought into our lives, to acknowledge the deep loss and grief we feel, and to create space to lean on each other for support.

Whether it’s a quiet, intimate moment with close family or a larger gathering with friends and neighbors, a thoughtful ceremony can be an important part of healing.

A Pet Memorial Service is, at its heart, like any other end-of-life ceremony—deeply personal and meaningful. It might include:

  • Welcome and Opening: The Celebrant offers comforting words to set the tone, acknowledging the significance of your pet’s life and the impact of their loss.
  • Meaningful Readings: These might include poetry, prose, or even a passage that reflects the unique bond you shared. For example, a reading of The Rainbow Bridge or a poem like My Forever Pet by Susanne Taylor.
  • Eulogy: A heartfelt reflection on your pet’s life—their quirks, their love, and the memories they left behind. As a Celebrant, I can help you compose this.
  • Sharing of Memories: Friends and family may be invited to share their favorite stories or moments with your pet, creating a tapestry of love and remembrance.
  • Rituals: Simple acts can add profound meaning to the ceremony. Examples might include:
    • A scattering of ashes in a favorite spot.
    • A dedication of the pet’s collar with a formal presentation to the owner as a keepsake.
    • Planting a tree or flowers in their honor.
    • Attendees each placing a memorial rock in a garden, planting a flower, or holding hands around the final resting place for a moment of silence.

As a professional pet funeral director and Celebrant, my role is to guide you through this process, ensuring the ceremony reflects your pet’s personality and your unique bond. Together, we can create a space for healing, connection, remembrance, and honor your pet’s legacy in a way that is meaningful to you and your loved ones.

Our pets may leave our lives, but they never leave our hearts.
A pet memorial is a beautiful way to celebrate the love and companionship they gave us, ensuring their legacy lives on in meaningful ways.

If you’re considering a pet memorial or need help planning one, I’m here to help. Let’s work together to honor the life of your cherished companion. You can reach me at 407-608-9242 if i can be of service to your family.


Pet Remembrance Services Pet Memorials Tee Rogers Pet Funeral Director

Atheists have funerals.

Humanist Funeral
Diverse Secular Identities
Some Diverse Secular Identities and Terms (click for larger image)

I was chatting in a group and someone interrupted to say hello. He’d recognized me as the officiant at a recent non-religious funeral. The conversation shifted abruptly. Someone in the group said they didn’t know that Atheists would even have funerals: “Why would they?”

I’ve had people tell me they didn’t understand marriage in the context of Atheism. Or secular baby welcoming / baby naming rituals that may take the place of baptisms. And yes, some think that one who doesn’t share their faith wouldn’t experience funerals, celebrations of life, or memorials in a meaningful way. Through a narrow lens, those moments may be steeped in the traditions of a specific faith.

Ritual is something ubiquitously human. It’s a significant experience across diverse perspectives. All feel love for others and grieve losses, support friends and family in their grief, and may find meaning in gathering together to say goodbye and honor someone lost. Yes, Atheists have funerals.

Beautiful moments of connection, like the private conversation that followed “Why would they?”, can build mini-bridges. But they’re also a broader reminder that barriers to diverse exposure (like limiting educational conversations about diversity) can create chasms between us and add to heavy, lonely burdens that people around us are carrying.

Mini bridges help, but larger bridges are needed.

A systemic bias in deathcare

The deathcare industry is, like many other service-focused industries, imbued with faith-bias. That means that people of secular and religious minority identities who are experiencing grief may also face, or fear facing, discrimination, identity washing, othering, silencing, harassment, faith bullying, being outed/coming out, and other challenges – at one of their most vulnerable moments.

It often comes as a surprise, even to those who face these Sisyphean challenges every day. Deathcare is a subject many people avoid in general. And further, very few consider in advance how LGBTQIA+ or secular or religious minority identity might impact them or their family when a death occurs. Far fewer make a plan, identify affirming providers and professionals in advance, and provide practical and legal tools that make things easier for loved ones.

There’s enough drama & trauma for families at such a difficult time. No one wants to be preyed on in a time of grief and no one should be forced to pray, pretend to pray, or defer to someone else’s g/God(s) at a time of grief and loss. Every person of every religious, secular, and spiritual identity – and LGBTQIA+ identity – deserves to be authentically honored in their deathcare.

Planning ahead is self-care.

You can plan for inclusive services by providing direction in your planning documents about, for example, using a certified Humanist Celebrant and how to locate one (links are below). This is important because the funeral home professional you’re working with may not be aware – or willing to acknowledge – that this resource exists. Remember that a Humanist Celebrant or Chaplain may be able to help you through the entire process, potentially even joining your meetings with the funeral home and cemetery if you invite them to.

If you’re intentional, open, and determined you can find inclusive providers who won’t try to “save” you on your deathbed or “bless” your body without consent. You can vet funeral providers (funeral homes, funeral directors, cemeteries, etc. – even hospices or hospitals) to ensure your perspective is welcomed and you and your family will be treated with respect when it matters most. You’re going to put your trust in someone – by planning ahead you have greater control over who that will be.

Vetting companies & professionals can be as simple as glancing over their website and social media shares, and/or disclosing your identity to them. Listen to the messages they promote or how they respond to you. How does what they say make you feel? Trust your gut. If the shoe doesn’t fit, it’s not your shoe.

And know that there are advocates and allies willing to help. You are not alone. If you have questions about inclusive deathcare, whether for a current experience or for planning ahead, i’m a call or text away at 407-608-9242.

RESOURCES

  • Identity Affirming Deathcare Directives – a free download fill-in-the-blank style guide and mental health and other resources for those in the LGBTQIA+ and minority RSSI (Religious, Secular, and Spiritual Identity) communities.
  • The Humanist Society – contact certified Humanist Celebrants, Chaplains, Lay Leaders, and Invocators.
  • National Consortium for Inclusion in Deathcare – This is a Big Bridge under construction – an emerging group of inclusion-focused deathcare professionals and researchers working to establish support for one another and resources for everyone. Contact 407-608-9242 to get connected.
  • More information & resources for Humanist and non-religious end-of-life ceremonies: https://humanistcelebrantorlando.com/memorials-life-celebrations/
https://humanistcelebrantorlando.com/memorials-life-celebrations/

A Special Graduation for Pride Month

Cover Photo Credit: Luis Xavier De Peña, Watermark Magazine

Bliss Health holistically serves a diverse community of people seeking to maintain or improve their health, relationships, and quality of life.

Bliss TRANSformation, one of their programs, is an annual conversational educational series that helps trans people learn ways to cope with the societal difficulties of being trans, become advocates for themselves and other transgender individuals, build leadership skills, and live successful lives. Bliss Health also facilitates and pays for each graduate’s legal name change. The TRANSformation program welcomes trans men, trans women, and anyone who identifies as non-binary.

The 2023 program, which had 60 participants, culminated in a graduation ceremony held at Typhoon Lagoon. It served as the kick-off of One Magical Weekend, the LGBTQIA+ Weekend at Walt Disney World Parks.

What a way to kick off Pride Month!

As part of their graduation ceremony on June 2nd, it was my honor to deliver the graduation keynote in the form of a group Transgender Naming Ceremony. Surrounded by family and friends, these graduates celebrated a pivotal milestone.

Ceremonies and rituals are deeply rooted in the art of flourishing as humans. They are a framework to commemorate, understand, share, and remember significant moments in our lives. They bring people together for a common purpose and foster & strengthen a sense of togetherness. Through ceremony, we experience a connection with something greater than ourselves like the community around us, or a relationship with culture and tradition.

A Transgender Naming Ceremony can hold tremendous meaning for those marking a transition to a new identity and a name that resonates with their true self. An affirming ceremony recognizes, acknowledges, and honors the courage it takes to be audaciously genuine. It can validate that individual’s journey and signify acceptance from those around us. It also provides healing and closure on the journey of self-acceptance and authenticity.

“…Throughout your life you have been swimming against the rushing current of cis-het norms and expectations. No matter how difficult, how scary, or how many times you were on that journey in solitude, you remained true to yourself. Your integrity and fortitude brought you here today. But you did not come here today in solitude. You came in solidarity, together with one another and with Bliss Health and all of the professionals, friends, family, allies, and advocates who have stood, and will continue to stand, with you…”

Ceremonies often contain rituals, like wedding unity rituals and water rituals in baby welcomings/namings. At the Transformations graduation, we joined in a community name-honoring ritual that celebrated each person’s new name, then we joined together in pledging to continue in positive self-care and to be a light in the world for others. We ended with a Humanist invocation before one last high-energy group participation moment. You just had to be there. 🙂

Congratulations to all of the graduates and thank you to Bliss Health for providing this important program that clearly made such an impact on each individual.

Mr. Rogers (no relation…) once said that when we see scary things in the news, “Look for the helpers. There are always people helping.” And the news these days can be scary indeed. The wisdom in looking for the positive is that what we choose to focus on informs our thoughts, which become actions, which define our character.

When we “look for the helpers”, we’re intentionally focusing on positive forces like Bliss Health’s TRANSformations program – and Nathan Bradley, the program’s fantastic coordinator – for inspiration to understand a little of the journey others are on – to walk a few steps in their shoes – and to find ways that we can make a difference for those around us.

Naming Ceremony, Humanist Celebrant Orlando
Read more about Transgender Naming Ceremonies

LINKS

Bliss Health: Website

Watermarkonline.com event photos by Luis Xavier De Peña

Divorce Ceremonies

Humanist Celebrant Orlando Tee Rogers Divorce Ceremony

Can i share something personal with you? I got divorced. It was finalized on January 18, 2007 – yesterday, a million years ago. The sun was out that morning, but all i felt was darkness. alone. broken. lost. unlovable. all the bad feelings. It was a rough day. Even though it was the best decision for us to move on, and i was grateful to have had such a wonderful relationship in my life, i was still wracked with grief. Some days you just need a blankie and a teddy bear and a bottle of scotch, you know?

I was thinking about that day this morning while updating the Divorce Ceremonies page on my website. How would such a ceremony have impacted my life? I think it would have been AMAZING, healing, freeing.

Could it help you or someone you know?

Such a ceremony is a unique, intentional way to honor what has been lost, mark closure, and look forward to a new chapter. A professional celebrant will learn about your unique situation, write a custom ceremony, and officiate a meaningful experience.

Continue reading about what happens at Divorce Ceremonies here: