When I traveled to my ancestral homeland last spring, my Italian cousins asked, "What do you do?" Not an easy question to answer, even without a language barrier. I was happy when my aunt jumped in to help. A Presbyterian minister, she explained: "Holly does what I do, but without God."

Over the past few weeks, several people have forwarded me an opinion piece from The Guardian titled "Are we ready to face death without religion?"

​They imagined it would bolster me in this thing I'm doing - what the writer Andrea Carlisle called "finding new ways to pass through old portals," that's reduced in this piece to "a rise in atheist funerals".

To my aunt's explanation of my vocation, and the assumption that I might embrace the mantle of "atheist funerals," I have to say: fair enough. I myself often describe my work as a Life-Cycle Celebrant as being "like a secular clergy person."

But I'm no longer sure that's accurate. 

Reading The Guardian opinion piece crystalized my misgivings. It describes a "deeply humanist conception of death" as springing from "the idea that needless suffering is the greatest evil there is and that autonomy is the supreme value."

If autonomy is the supreme value of secular humanism, I'm out. I hold interdependence as my supreme value. I'm not sure, as the author argues, that "we’re the ultimate owners of our own lives." I believe that how we live and how we die has consequence for many more than just ourselves.

That said, I'm no fan of organized religion. I myself am Christian-injured, to borrow an apt phrase from a friend. Orthodoxy doesn't look like much of an answer to me either. 

My life these days, my work as a Celebrant, my time with the dying and the bereaved, may be without religion. But it's not without what has come to be called Capital-G-God-with-no-S.

When I arrived to take my nine year-old niece to school yesterday, she had a job for me. "Emerald died," Josie reported. "We have to bury him." 

Emerald was a beta fish. She told me that his once-splendid tail had fallen apart and that the other fish in the tank had been attacking him. She had already laid him out in an Altoids tin and had a grave marker ready (recycled from the burial of Saski, her very first fish).

Her dad tried to give me an out - he knew I'd had a full load of family, friend, and client funeral services in recent weeks. But Josie already had me by the arm and said conspiratorially, "After all, Aunt Holly, it's what you're good at."

We dug a shovel out of the garage. Josie was pleased we'd found the yellow handled one; they'd used a trowel for Saski's burial and she had yet another tool in mind for whichever burial would come next. The idea of every one of their garden implements being employed in gravedigging seemed important to her.

She led me to a spot underneath a rhododendron bush where Saski had returned to the earth. We dug the grave, trying not to bisect any earthworms. Josie picked up each of the worms that wriggled to escape, comparing their lengths. After placing Emerald's casket in the ground we gathered petals to decorate it. She told me stories about Emerald and told Emerald stories about Saski, so that they might find each other in the spirit world.

But there was something missing. The ancient Egyptians sent their dead along with something from their lives so they wouldn't feel lost, she told me. She ran off to get a few pieces of gravel from Emerald's tank.

After those were placed I asked if she had a song for Emerald. She gave it some thought and then began a soft song of love and farewell. I joined her for a few final rounds. We covered the grave, placed the marker and some flowers, and went inside for breakfast.