Dev Raghunathan, Celebrant

How I began

I was a hospice social worker for fourteen years and watched families in the last week argue about a funeral nobody had planned, usually because no one could see how two traditions would fit in one room. I trained as a celebrant in 2022 to do that fitting.

Why families choose me

A great many Chicago families are two or three traditions in one room. A Hindu father, a Catholic mother-in-law, grandchildren who describe themselves as nothing in particular, and a service that has to hold all of them without pretending any of them away. That is the work I do best. I will sit with whoever needs to be heard — usually more people than you first planned to include — and write a ceremony that names each tradition honestly rather than blending them into something nobody recognizes. Where a rite needs a priest or an imam I will say so and help you find one, and I am comfortable sharing a service with clergy. I lead in English, Hindi or Urdu, and I read passages in a language I do not speak if a family teaches me the pronunciation.

Ownership