Julie Carlton Celebration of Life Celebrant

18/03/2026

Beautiful song about Alzheimers & an amazing book of poetry. Check out - Heartfelt

14/03/2026

The question is WHY? I’m often asked these questions … Why do you do this work? How do you cope, meeting and working with (and alongside) grieving families? Isn’t it morbid? How do you hold back the tears and sadness when sharing their loved one’s life story? Why would you bother? You could be fully retired and living the life you choose… travelling, relaxing, reading, enjoying time with your own family!’
Well, yes I could just forget being a Funeral, Memorial & Celebration of Life Celebrant and do all those fun things in my retirement, BUT I have chosen to do this work because I want to honour and celebrate the lives of those who have died. I consider it an honour and privilege to share those stories and to give the person the farewell they, or their family, wish… a farewell that is unique, creative, funny, poignant, joyous and above all, celebratory! A farewell that honours a life journey – no matter how brief no matter how many decades long, no matter how troubled their life was, no matter if they were professional, well respected or homeless, no matter their gender, their lifestyle or chosen pathway, no matter how they died (cancer, illness, old age, voluntary assisted dying, an accident, or su***de) every person deserves a farewell that’s dignified and respectful.
I’ve been a Celebrant since 2006 and I know that being in the Funeral, Death and Dying space is where I want to be, where I NEED to be. It’s my chosen path, definitely my HEART’S work… and EVERY family I work with, EVERY person’s life journey is SPECIAL – both to their family and to me.
And then, after the ceremony, when the family reflects on the tough times they’ve been through, the overwhelming grief and loss they’re experiencing, they still find the time, and the grace, to send me a thank you feedback message from their heart, like this one, from Sam… about her friend Julie Penney’s Celebration of Life Ceremony:
I want to express my deepest appreciation for Funeral Celebrant, Julie Carlton, who led Julie Penney’s service with extraordinary grace, dignity and heartfelt sincerity. From the moment the ceremony began, Julie created an atmosphere of warmth, respect and genuine care.
So many people commented afterwards on what a truly excellent service it was - beautifully structured, thoughtfully delivered, and deeply reflective of who Julie was. Julie Carlton has a rare ability to hold space with compassion while guiding a room through both grief and remembrance. Her presence was steady, comforting, and profoundly human.
I am sincerely grateful for the way she honoured Julie’s life and supported everyone present. I would wholeheartedly recommend her to any family seeking a Celebrant who brings professionalism, empathy, and a remarkable sense of dignity to such an important moment. I think Julie Carlton’s a perfect celebrant and she speaks so eloquently. So, from my family… thank you again.~ Sam
So, now you know WHY I do this work… it’s for the families I work with… and to honour their loved one’s life journey.

09/03/2026

Having not long been through the process of emptying my Mumma’s home, as she is now in care, everything mentioned on this post about ‘they left us everything’ touched my heart. It’s a painful, heartfelt, tearful, exhausting process. But what it did do for me was allow me to ‘live’ in my Mumma’s life, remembering, acknowledging, appreciating so much about her life … & just what she gifted her 3Js - me, Jenny Lynch & Jeff. 😘🥰😍🙏💕

The first thing that dies in a house is not the person. It's the sound. You unlock the door and step inside and the silence hits you like something physical. You no longer hear the kettle boiling, no footsteps in the hallway, no voice from another room asking who just came in. Just the quiet.

And then you notice the second thing that survives death. Everything else. The coat still hanging by the door. The jar of rubber bands in the kitchen drawer. A chair that still carries the shape of someone who will never sit in it again. You walk through the rooms like a guest in a museum of ordinary life. And suddenly someone has to decide what becomes of it all.

In They Left Us Everything, Plum Johnson finds herself standing in that exact silence. Her parents are gone. The family home, fifty years deep in objects, habits, and small forgotten histories, remains. And someone has to empty it. That someone is her.

What she finds is not a mess. That would be easier, in some ways. Mess gives you somewhere to put your hands. What she finds is a life organised by people who believed in keeping things. Aprons. Tools. Christmas ornaments going back to when the children were small. Love letters her parents wrote before they married, tender and burning, nothing like the careful distance she'd grown up watching them maintain. The house is an archive. Every room is a conversation she never got to finish. And now she never will.

1. Every object you touch is a conversation with someone who can no longer speak:
Plum opens drawers and finds love letters from before her parents married; tender, nothing like the brittle distance she witnessed growing up. She finds photographs that quietly contradict the family story. Receipts that open small windows onto secrets. Her father's tools arranged with the quiet obsession of a man who needed one thing in his life to be perfectly ordered. Her mother's aprons, worn thin at the front, stiff at the ties.

Each object carries its history in its fibre, and none of them can explain themselves anymore. You realise, reading, that this isn't decluttering. It's excavation. She is digging through the sediment of two lives trying to find the truth of them, knowing the whole time that whatever she finds, she cannot ask anyone to confirm it.

2. Keeping everything isn't the same as honouring them
Plum finds dozens of her mother's aprons. Keeps one. Donates the rest. Feels like a terrible daughter for keeping only one, then feels like a terrible daughter for donating any. This is the mathematics nobody teaches you about grief: everything you keep becomes a weight you carry forward. Everything you release feels like a small act of abandonment.

There is no arrangement of keeping and releasing that doesn't cost something. Her mother wore those aprons like proof, proof she was doing it right, being what she was supposed to be. And now the proof is in garbage bags in the driveway and Plum is the one who put it there.

3. What you owe the dead versus what you owe yourself.
Do you preserve everything because throwing it away feels disrespectful? Turn their house into a museum? Or do you recognise that you cannot live your own life while curating theirs? Johnson keeps her mother's wedding ring, her father's tools, the dining room table where decades of meals and arguments happened.

She releases most of the rest. And she learns to live inside the guilt and the relief that come with both, because letting go is not betrayal. It is the decision to keep living. That is the hardest lesson in the book, and she earns it slowly, over pages, without making it sound easier than it is.

By the end of They Left Us Everything, something subtle has changed. The house grows emptier. But Plum grows clearer. Because somewhere between the boxes and the memories, she begins to understand that what her parents left behind wasn’t really furniture or dishes or drawers full of things.

They left a life that shaped her. And the quiet responsibility of deciding what parts of that life she will carry forward.

The rest? The rest must be allowed to go. Not because it didn’t matter. But because the living still have rooms of their own to fill.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/46QoofL

09/03/2026

For any of my contacts in the hills area… March 28 in Midland. 💕❤️💕

Grief Connect® Widowed Support Groups are continuing across Australia this month, and I’m really looking forward to spending time together with our community.

These gatherings are simple but powerful. They create a space where widowed people can sit with others who understand the reality of life after loss. No explanations needed. No pressure to be anything other than where you are right now.

What I see again and again at these meet ups is the power of connection. When people who share this experience come together, something shifts. Conversations open up, people feel understood, and a small sense of hope can begin to grow again.

Upcoming gatherings:

• 11 March – Newcastle
Over 55s Widowed Support Group

• 27 March – Cottesloe, Perth
Combined Young Widowed and Over 55s Support Groups

• 28 March – Midland, Perth
Widowed Support Group

If you know someone who has been widowed, please share this post with them.
It might help them discover a community they did not know existed.

Event details are shared privately within our Grief Connect® groups to help keep the spaces safe for members.

13/02/2026

Save the date for this one! 📆

Rest Assured invites you to join our first webinar of the year, “When the time comes: What to do before and after someone dies,” on Wednesday, 4 March 2026 at 5pm AEDT.

13/02/2026

Came across this clip tonight whilst ‘scrolling’…. And it made me reflect on all those loved ones who’ve died… and who are now ‘watching over me’. My Dad, my step-father, my beautiful Nan… 💕💕💕💕Who’s looking over you?

12/02/2026

For those who may be experiencing ‘widow fog’, ‘brain fog’, overwhelm, confusion, desperation, anxiety, … with never-ending pain, angst & tears… this post is for you. Thank you Michelle Moriarty.

24/01/2026

For those in my area of the hills who may be interested… it’s great to see a safe, beautiful end-of-life death conversation space happening for the LGBTIQA+ members of the community.

An invitation to share your thoughts about Care , Family and Planning for the future.

23/01/2026

Wherever I travel I always visit cemeteries. I guess it’s because I work with grieving families in my celebrant role. But also I’m fascinated in the stories they tell of lives lived, the social history of a place… I love the rituals, the variations, style & creativity of the headstones & grave surrounds. I love reading the carefully composed wording that succinctly must encompass a life journey. I feel the pain expressed by family left behind… I feel their anguish, wipe away their tears & I sense their loss, their grief & sorrow overwhelming them. But then a few steps away I will happen upon a joyful happy tale of a successful life, lived to the fullest, with joy, laughter & kindness. I stop awhile… breathe that life in … & celebrate it too. Walking through a cemetery is a meditation for me. It grounds me. It inspires me. It saddens me. But two things do upset me greatly. The intense pain I feel when reading a headstone telling of an angel baby or death of a young child. Then I see the desecration of some graves… the flower pots upended, broken pieces strewn around, the weeds taking over, the fact that no one cares about this person, this life that was lived. I admire the communities of volunteers who lovingly take on this task. But sadly not in Esperance. But I will continue to walk amongst the dead. They have much to share with us… & to teach me.💕