Mother’s Day can be tough for people who’ve already lost theirs – a day to remember what they’re missing.

As a funeral director, I get to see people saying their goodbyes to all kinds of family and friends, but funerals for mothers are always a bit different.

We had a lady earlier this year, who decided to record her own eulogy.  She left instructions to her sons that it was on her phone and not to watch it until the service.  They were shocked when they discovered she had prepared a full twenty minute oration.  You could have heard a pin drop as she talked about her life, school, how she met their father and told different anecdotes about each of her children.  When she finished, the entire congregation stood to give her a standing ovation – not something many people get at their own funerals.

There is a history when it comes to funerals for mothers being unlike any others.  Dads are loved and missed too, but the atmosphere when it is a mum who has passed is very noticeably heightened.  Making a personal appearance is something which was taken a step further by a lady called Miriam Burbank, who in true New Orleans tradition, knew how to put on a show.  Ms Burbank came to her own wake, propped up at a table, cigarette in one hand, twelve year old malt in the other, with a disco ball spinning in time to the music, nails carefully painted in the colours of her beloved New Orleans Saints American Football team.

In this country, the royal family has always done things their own way when mothers pass too.  Only Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson had more expensive send-offs than Princess Diana and the Queen Mother.  But the most unusual royal funeral was for Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I and mother to Edward II.  She died in Nottinghamshire in 1290 and was taken in procession back to London in a journey lasting twenty-one days.  At twelve of the places where the procession stopped, monuments were built – we know them today as Eleanor crosses.  Her funeral was far from straightforward in that she was buried in three different places - her entrails in Lincoln, her heart at Black Friars in London, and the rest of her in Westminster Abbey.

Mums can often surprise you, and the funeral of one mother in particular almost caught us unawares quite recently.  From what the family had said it seemed like it was going to be quite a small affair.  There was the husband and three children and the Order of Service they’d asked for made no mention of any tributes from anyone outside the immediate family.  When we arrived at the crematorium, we were taken aback to see perhaps a hundred people there meaning there was standing room only.  The minister quickly realised that a lot of them were expecting to speak.  It soon became clear from the heartfelt tributes that this lady may have only given birth to her daughters and son, but the room was filled with people who regarded her as a mother to them.  There was an outpouring of deeply loving and touching tributes from so many – several of whom had even named their own kids after her.  It was hard to imagine how she’s managed to divide up her time among so many individuals.

You can often spot a mother’s funeral by the quantity of flowers that arrive with us in the days leading up to it – usually many more than with other deaths.  The atmosphere of loss but also of celebration is different too.  We were asked to arrange a service for a non-religious family at a local stately home, and weren’t quite sure what to expect.  The answer was that it turned into a party.  In place of the usual hymns, it was all reggae and R & B.  People were singing and dancing in the aisles and it felt more like a nightclub than a funeral.  Mum liked to enjoy herself and her family and friends had decided she should go out as she had lived.

Mothers make their mark on us all.