Always go to the funeral (2005)
npr.org
npr.org
My aunt was alone for the last three years of her live, up to 94 years old. She had almost no visitors, and was not able to go out by herself. I went there about every week, and was always the only visitor.
Then came the funeral, with well over 400 people there, and around 200 people at the coffee table after the funeral. And I was like: Where the hell were you guys the past three years? She was alone (after her husband died) and most of you never visited her since (and no they were not living far away or unable to visit).
Go to the funeral yes, but don't wait until.
My cousin was in hospital dying of cancer. I spoke to my mum and she said she wasn't sure what to say etc, so she ended up not going. I went. I said to him "hey this situation really sucks". We had a great conversation. He died. I'm really glad I went.
Fast forward a few years and my uncle (his dad) was in hospital dying of cancer. I spoke to my mum and she said she wasn't sure what to say etc. I said "you remember what happened last time. Just go." She went[1]. It was a good way to bring finality and say goodbye to her brother and she was really glad she went.
[1] I also went separately but that's slightly beside the point
Later a friend was dying and when she could no longer talk, I'd head out for a walk and just describe what I could see, what my plans were, and great things I remembered from our past - I wasn't able to visit, but her parents said she really enjoyed the voice notes she got - almost as much as the visitors.
But if you can see people, just do it. Not long ago my mum decided to try and visit a whole heap of friends across England, just as she realised after my dad died, that she never knew the last time she'd see these people - and wanted it to be occasions they both enjoyed, before too much time had passed. I loved the idea.
Just show up. Help out if you can (bring food).
If they want to talk they’ll talk. If they don’t they still had the option.
I watched Lars and the Real Girl with some people who grew up on the west coast. There’s a scene after a funeral where these two little old ladies come over, bring food, and just knit and occupy space, so he’s not alone. I said that’s the most midwestern thing I’ve ever seen in a Hollywood movie. And it still pretty much is.
I’m a Catholic and admittingly I fall short of it, perhaps I should take a page from our Lutheran brothers.. Thanks for sharing!
He also has a great talk with Sam Harris that's worth a listen.
I got so much time with him just before he passed. It was truly a blessing, even though he was already a huge part of my childhood, to get one last hurrah before I entered adulthood and he... well, took the next step.
I'm not a religious person, I don't honestly think there's an afterlife, and on this point my parents disagree. Maybe they would've made more time to visit him if they weren't sure he was going to a better place and they'd see him again.
I've been meaning to visit her for the past five years, but never got around to it - and now never will.
They showed up in a funeral not because of her, but because they were afraid of what others would say about them if they didn't show up.
This is the sad reality of human behaviour in this day and age.
That’s like, your opinion man. You are in control of that. Such a negative view is a choice. You can focus on something positive instead.
Our connected world allows families to stay in touch with almost zero friction. I get multiple updates weekly on my nieces and nephews even though they live hundreds of miles away.
I have hundreds of photos and videos at my fingertips.
I only get two or three in person visits a year. Connectivity is our only way to maintain… connection.
GP stated explicitly they have a theory about something that is causing people to behave differently. You can call that an opinion if you'd like. You can not believe the theory and instead blame that person's "choice," which is also "your opinion man." Your anecdote isn't very relevant to the theory in a thread full of people talking to the contrary.
Yes and I disagree that connectivity is inherently negative or even overwhelming.
> You can call that an opinion if you'd like.
This “theory” is totally unsubstantiated so is no more than an opinion.
> You can not believe the theory and instead blame that person's "choice," which is also "your opinion man."
Yes. That’s exactly what I did.
> Your anecdote isn't very relevant to the theory in a thread full of people talking to the contrary.
I don’t find the volume of an argument compelling.
There are big positives about having an abundance of food, but along with that we get type 2 diabetes and plenty of other health problems. Trying to understand the cause of these health problems does not mean one wishes to return to an era of widespread starvation and malnutrition. I suppose you have the same criticism for the doctors who began theorizing that an excess of carbs/sugar was causing problems? After all, plenty of people enjoy sugary desserts and lots of families get quality time together eating them around the dinner table. I don't see why those doctors had to choose to have such a negative view. Ignoring the problem would have been better, no?
I agree with you that always on communication can be overwhelming. When that communication is negative it affects our emotions negatively. So why continue to add negativity? That’s the choice.
1. Life is busy, it's hard to find time, and easy to put off 2. They are anxious about what to say, and it really sucks going to places where people die. 3. There are a lot of people who show up to funerals because they are trying to support the friends and family of the deceased and don't really have any relationship with the deceased. My friends parents for instance. I don't really feel an obligation to visit my friends parent's I barely know, but would want to show up to the funeral to support my friends.
"Go to the funeral" isn't just about the funeral. It's a specific example of "if you have a chance to show up for someone, show up for them: even if (maybe _especially_ if) it's awkward or inconvenient".
Yes, I think so too.
Thank you for bringing this up. To add to that ... sometimes, circumstances (i.e. long distances) dictate that only 1 of those trips can be made and they may have to choose.
I had a family member with a terminal illness and a friend of the family from out of state decided to visit 2 months before the end to say goodbyes. They were elderly and on a fixed income so they could only budget the money for 1 trip. As a result, they had to skip the funeral. From my standpoint, they made the correct choice of prioritizing the conversation with a living person instead of attending a funeral.
I've seen this with a relative with dementia - many people just weren't aware that she had no contact with them anymore due to this.
I lost family members the day after having phone calls, or planning stuff to do together the upcoming weekend.
Leaving something to do later instead of now, that later might be too late.
Maybe they were there when you weren't there and they're asking the same question about you? Maybe your aunt never really thought to bring up that so-and-so had come to visit while you were there, so then as far as you know, nobody came to visit? Maybe they called, sure it's not the same as visiting but it's something.
It's true though, as humans we tend to not think about things and other people until they are gone. Don't be angry and upset, if anything, pity them for not having the time that you had.
No.
She complained about not seeing anyone. She had a clear mind and we talked a lot about her friends and family.
Funerals are for the living, it's strengthening your friendships and relationships.
This is the point the article is trying to make. Parties and gatherings matter, don't confuse your birthday, Brit Milah or funeral being about you. It's selfish not have these ceremonies, they are about community and others.
It's a long road getting society more community focused again.
It was awful. I wanted to stand up and say he was a good friend, and to say I would miss him, but I didn't.
I've regretted that ever since - 30 years now, and I think about it frequently.
It's not like you hurt your friends feelings for not speaking up.
Every time we avoid the alive impulse is a failure of sorts, but usually we don't notice it like in this story above.
I usually supress emotions in order to perform, solve problems. I ignore all frustration, sadness, boredom and just focus or executing the steps to solve the current problem. Convinced that good performance is what leads to good quality of life.
It's like the kid who jumps and cries around the father saying "I want to play". The father ignores him and says "go away, don't bother me please, I'm working", thinking "what he really needs is a nice house, food and clothes, that's why I work".
But this has lead me to a pervasive state of unsatisfaction, even though I now have many shiny things to enjoy.
He seems to view it as a personal failing that he didnt ignore the awkwardness to “solve the problem” of no one memorializing his friend and thinks about that inability to perform in the moment often, because he wants to be someone who can “rise to the occasion” in such moments.
You seem to have a different problem, eg a bad work-life balance or lack of meaningful duties to perform.
You might say the foundation of polite society itself rests heavily on the shoulders of millions of weary parents with varying amounts of care and effort expended
Now, having the courage to act according to what you know by prudence is the right and just thing to do is something else. Here, you are acting according to what is objectively good, and not only that, but what you know is objectively good. And yes, you could say that acting out of genuine courage does make a person feel more alive, as he isn't shrinking out of fear and cowardice. He is acting against the comfort of mediocrity, and as we all know, a little danger and risk does get the blood moving.
If you want to be a person who is part of a community, who cares for the people around them, and doesn't look at everything as a transaction, then you maybe go to a funeral even if you can't measure some benefit for yourself.
Ask me to give a speech on the spot at my father's birthday party? I cower in fear. Same when my mother passed away. I wanted to say so many things, but I couldn't get over the anxiety. You're not alone.
It's that time of year when It's a Wonderful Life shows up on TV. Have you ever seen the scene in the boardroom just after Jimmy Stewart's character's father died and left him the Building & Loan business? If you look closely, he's wearing a black arm band. That used to be customary as a way to signaling to people "I'm grieving, so please forgive me if I'm not in my right mind. Take what I say and do with a grain of salt."
When I die, I would not want my friends to feel worse by regretting something they did or didn't do. I'm willing to bet your friend loved you enough to feel the same way.
Note that custom for funerals comes from the local culture and customs of how previous funerals are run. So that it isn't to you is just a reflection on your culture, other people come from different cultures where such a thing is not normal and because it is not normal- for their culture - it harms their meditations which would be done in the way they have grown up doing.
As such I'm not making a statement of right and wrong for your culture, only that in OPs culture it is wrong and so asking for someone to speak like that was in fact wrong on the part of whoever asked. Whoever asked may well have come from a different culture where this behavior is normal and so made a mistake by not recognizing that they were in a different culture!
According to you. I’d be surprised if such an opportunity wasn’t presented.
> As such I'm not making a statement of right and wrong for your culture,
Except to call it odd.
> only that in OPs culture it is wrong and so asking for someone to speak like that was in fact wrong on the part of whoever asked.
You brought up culture.
This was clearly a case of an open mic. Nobody was asking anyone to do anything. It’s an opportunity to do so if you wish.
No, according to what happened in that instance. If this was normal in the culture of that family someone would have gone to the mic.
Do not confuse my culture with the culture in question.
> I’d be surprised if such an opportunity wasn’t presented.
Which is a reflection on your culture.
> Except to call it odd
Again, odd in terms of that one particular culture.
> This was clearly a case of an open mic
A case of open mic in a cultural situation where an open mic was not supposed to happen.
I'm old enough that I've been to a number of funerals -- ranging from distant, much older family members when I was a kid, to funerals for an aunt not quite out of her 30s, a cousin not yet 20, and some friends or for family of my spouse.
A lot of the time the customs are _unclear_. The services vary a lot. There's a great deal of uncertainty around "what should I do?" Because we don't have a coherent funerary custom here. We have plenty of conflicting ideas and expectations around funerals.
So, on top of grief, you have the fear of "doing it wrong" and compounding someone's else's grief when you attend the funeral of a friend or family member. People have hurt feelings because friends and family members don't live up to their assumptions about what someone else should (or shouldn't) do at a funeral.
In some ways, it'd be comforting if it were more scripted and you knew exactly what you were expected to do, say, and so forth.
He delivers it better than me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ6giVKp9ec
She teaches that when it comes to death and dying and supporting other going through the process, be present, neutral, kind, and courageous. It is hard and awkward to get up to speak. And no shame in not doing it, especially as a more distant connection. But also a lot of good can come from it as well.
When it was time to speak, nobody got up to say anything, until I did. I mentioned so many of us had negative feelings about him, and then recalled what good things he did for us. That ice broken, several of my cousins also stood up and spoke.
My uncle, who had arranged the funeral, closed it off by saying to everyone in the audience that if you wanted your own funeral to have more good stories, it was a good idea to patch relationships while still alive.
I think I would have regretted not standing up to speak. My grandfather did good and bad -- he invented the type of artificial voicebox given to people with throat cancer. He performed lifesaving surgeries on hundreds of people. He also yelled at his grandchildren during every dinner. He leered at my mother and aunts.
And yet, I would have regretted not going to his funeral, and not speaking.
I grew up in Eastern Europe. My grandmother was a devoted christian with a lot of community work around church events. As a kid my parents would leave me often with her for the holidays. She took me with her to pretty much every funeral that was happening in the town, since she had to attend.
It sounds crazy but these events were large social gatherings, people bringing food, chatting. Often other kids would be there as well. Someone had died, but it wasn't necessarily a sad event. It was people being there for the deceased one and their relatives. There was also something like the "crying group" - that would be old ladies crying for the deceased one as an act of support of the relatives rather than expressing genuine feelings. The coffin would sometimes be placed on a trailer towed by a tractor to the graveyard. The "crying group" would hop onto the trailer and they would cry around the coffin. They were really good. I realize how strange this may sound, but it was just the way it was back then.
None of these funerals could prepare me for the loss of my 2 grandmothers. Still, without meaning it in a disrespectful way, death is an important part of our life-experience, and even as a kid, I'm thankful to have had seen it that often and in a non-violent way.
Wow. This part really resonated with me. I will try to keep this in mind.
As my grandmother liked to repeat: "If you don't go to someone's funeral, they won't come to yours."
[0] https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/crowd-shows-up-to-funera...)
I did misjudge it once: I was living in a different country with two fellow Irish people and the relative of a good friend died. In Ireland it would have been expected that we attend the funeral, in this case we showed up and there were only six closest relatives there, and our presence just felt inappropriate. I now know your place at a funeral is about your place in a wider community. That often overlaps with being a connection-of-a-connection, but not always.
The cherry on top was our youngest started getting restless during service and we had to leave early and we didn’t sit in the back.
I had only been to my parents funerals at this point, and never experienced a more formal religious service, but we were the worst in so many ways. I still regret it 10 years later.
Attendees of a funeral make an effort to pay their respects to the deceased and to express their condolences to the family left behind.
Sounds extremely awkward and like a plot Michael Scott would get himself wrapped into.
Also, your intentions are to be commended regardless of what the relatives thought (it's not the relative's funeral, so they are not the yardstick).
9+ times out of 10 when I’m on the fence about going to a major life event and go, I’m glad I did. Can’t think of the last thing I regretted going to.
I’ve certainly missed some like graduations I regret not making it to.
Funerals are towards the top of the list of big life events and I’ve never regretted one.
But there's definitely some other effects in play there: revisiting people from your past who you've lost touch with is a pretty fraught experience, at least for me because ultimately the relationship is at best frozen in time from whenever you last talked: high school is particularly bad IMO, because it tends to feel like just trying not to be who you were a decade ago as everyone remembers you, rather then getting to be who you are now.
But I went to a high school friend's 40th, and caught up with the people who were my good friends - and still are - and it was worth every penny just to hear their voices face to face for a few days.
But it was the complete opposite. There was a committee of four students that planned it, they set up a tour of the building with the new principal in the morning, they rented out a venue that had an almost prom-like feel to it, there was a memorial to four students that had died (three of which I wasn't even aware of, one of which was my friend that shot and killed himself while we were still in high school, so it was nice to see him remembered).
Tons of people were there (like at least 60 people), and I talked to people I barely talked to in high school because I was so shy (and realized my reputation seemed to be a bit higher than I had anticipated, I just thought I was the quiet weird kid), and I was able to remember and reconnect to some friendships I had mostly forgotten about in the years since, and see how these people had changed since up close instead of just some random posts on Facebook.
It was really great for the most part. Only downer was seeing how many people had kids and how old those children were (a few people were nearly empty nesters already), since I still don't have children yet.
The reasons my brain comes up with for why I shouldn't go are just lies.
Just go. And take what you can get while the opportunities are still coming.
It’s like saying it’s bad advice to approach women because of some bad experiences you had. Meanwhile the next woman you meet might be your wife.
I've only got a couple of other friends that close that I would consider attending their parents' funeral. One parent passed away during covid and there was no service. When that other parent passes, I think I will go, even though we've not seen each other in years. Several states away, again, but I will plan on going.
I was going to add a top-level comment adding that there's a bit of nuance here between _the wake_ (calling hours, as the author puts it) and _the funeral_.
I actually have a similar regret about not attending the _funeral_ for a friend's mother, although I did attend the wake. In retrospect, I absolutely should have gone to the funeral but, at least in the US, the expectations around who should attend _the funeral_ vary between religions/backgrounds/etc. and it can sometimes be hard to tell what the most appropriate move is. This is especially true if you're no longer/not very close to the family in question. Some families want _the funeral_ to be a more intimate, private affair and will sometimes even mention that it will be in the announcement.
But, to your and the author's point, I think as a general rule, _going_ is the better bet.
You should do it for yourself, out of respect for the person who died and respect for the loved ones remaining. Not out of societal obligation
The corollary to that is there are plenty of times where the right thing is to not go to the funeral. If you lack those things.
There have been times I don’t go the funeral. Because the dead person was a horrible person. When people asked, I said exactly that and many times the response I got was “man I wish I had not gone”
More broadly, your actions are a reflection of your values. If there's a mismatch, then one of two things must be true: you fell short of your ideals and you should strive to do better in the future, or your stated values really aren't your values.
The funeral is a ritual for the people who knew and loved the dead person. The question should really be about them, rather than the deceased who is dead and gone.
Now you've made yourself the asshole to other people. Not a great life strategy.
Was there another assumption?
But I went because I felt a duty to my relatives that isn’t released just because they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain: he had indirectly given me life, even if he had done much ill besides. And moreover I felt an obligation to the office of the head of my family that transcended the particular man.
It would be a grim world in which comfort for the grieving is a service the deceased must have earned in advance, and we the comforters decide whether they have really earned it.
In 2024 it would be quite better if we did more things out of societal obligation, instead of each individual placing themselves (and their whims) as the moral authority.
Some examples of communities I've been a part of over the years:
- Family
- Church groups
- Bar buddies (overlapping with the previous category :))
- Biker community
- Startup community
- Technology groups
- Queer communities
- Neighbor groups
It was a lot harder to get into groups when I used to be introverted, I distinctly remember how afraid I was. My startup was the thing that forced me way out of my comfort zone and led me to learn how to overcome my fears of joining groups full of unknown people. The "ah-ha" moment was when I realized many others had the same fears and insecurities as I did, and yet that's ok.
Societal obligation in this case is literally basic minor respect towards the remaining people. And frankly, the loneliness epidemic HN like to talk about is closely related to the ideology where the only thing that matters is yourself.
I don't see the value of standing next to their corpses.
I didn't go to my grandma funeral, I don't regret it. I regret not having had deeper relationship with her.
Same with my parents. Will have many regrets, but I believe not saying goobye to their corpses won't be one.
Remember, though, there are funerals where only one person attends. And publicly acknowledging one's loss - even if it only consists of going to a building with strangers and posting an obituary - can be one of the most important steps in processing grief for some people.
You're showing the other grieving people that you care about them
I don't see what else I should think of.
If we have a great relationship, I can lend you money, share my house, get you a date, do some errands for you, take you to a party, listen to your thoughts and give you feedback. All valuable things I can do for you regardless of my funeral attendance. But just standing at a funeral? I don't see how is that valuable. Maybe for the chat, but we can have the chat anywhere else, like staring at the stars in a park, a superior setting.
And if we don't have a good relationship, well, then it doesn't matter what you want.
Is it most? I don't know.
And do most do it because their emotions and values give them this urge, or is it that they want to fit their social circle or comply with their cultural norms? I dont know
Maybe they want to remember the deceased with you in a setting that is about remembering the deceased?
Is that less valuable than wanting to go to a party together?
Funerals aren't about saying goodbye to corpses. They're collective, complex rituals that aid the grieving process.
Doing the right thing all the time is painful, tedious and can cost you. But doing the wrong thing will cost you too. Both compound.
The literal advice about going to the funeral is about showing up for people who meant something to you. There are only a few special times in your life when you get to see a large chunk of other people's important people:
* graduations
* coming of age ceremonies
* weddings
* funerals
Being there gives you a special chance to know the person better. Just do it.
To end with a lighter note loosely related, a funny citation of the marshal Foch:
> "An assembly must have an odd number of members in order to make a decision, but three is already too many."
I've tried, man. I'm deeply uncomfortable in social situations, and events with lots of wacky, nonsense traditions and rules that I don't understand makes things exponentially worse. Going to events like weddings and graduations makes me utterly miserable. I feel like shit for days before & afterwards, and I always regret going for months & years afterwards. I guess there's a chance someone there is glad I'm off being miserable in a corner, but I doubt it. So I've mostly stopped going to these things.
Especially, coming from a culture where they are a big event. People spend enormous money on funerals —- money that they wouldn’t help you with while you are alive and struggling.
Maybe attending one in a less flamboyant culture will change my mind.
But I wish more people in general don’t wait for terminal events to do or say nice things.
- A bad person gets celebrated in a way that is not aligned to your understanding
- A bunch of people who don't know about the less than stellar bits offering what feels like performative grief
- Others who enabled the less than stellar bits angry their applecart has been upset, looking to lash out at a scapegoat.
Obviously not everyone has this negative experience, but narcissism is in about 6.2-7.7% of the population; other "dark traits" are also around in a long tail. So it's not unreasonable to expect around 12-15%? of people risk a potential increase to trauma at an already complex time of their lives.
> ... I wish more people in general don’t wait for terminal events to do or say nice things.
I agree, but whatever you did earlier, that's not a reason to not do something now.
Does this person have friends from childhood? Do his friends come from the same place, or all sorts of places? Do they know each other, or does he have a lot of singletons there?
Who considers themselves close family? Second cousins? Or did their cousins not even come?
How well represented are various social classes?
I always find these things super interesting when I go to one of these.
Or maybe I'm just noticing more.
I've been on HN since 2007.
There was that story a few weeks ago with the aging parents and their daughter that took a picture of them waving goodbye, each year she visited.
I like these stories. It gives me pause and to wonder what it's all been for.
Probably for my kids. My second oldest (9) loves creating levels in Geometry Dash. He'll probably be an engineer.
He asks great questions. He can teach himself new tricks from YouTube videos. He asks for critical feedback on his levels. That's a good start.
I'm just rambling.
Btw, which post are you referring to? I am curious to read it as well.
You kid sounds amazing. Be proud and ramble on.
- kids who just graduated and realize that they've been told lies and need some life advice
- midlife crisis
- retirees who can see the death slowly approaching and reevaluate their lives in panic
A small but important suggested addition: if it's someone who's funeral you would go to, tell that person now what they mean to you. Then they can hear it while they are still alive.
It is not a given that you will have enough time to tell them later.
you ask me that after I said "clearly, the message of not attending is being said to others not to the person, but you get the gist"
so clearly, you didn't get the gist. not attending says something to the other friends/family that did attend. the knee jerk reaction is "what an asshole to not attend" typically followed by "I wonder what happened that would make them not attend". then the gossiping begins and the person sending the message smiles a wry smile
Ok. I can respect that.
It is just that as I was thinking the dead was the target, it would be better to make sure you get whatever retribution while he is alive.
I know several people who expressed a wish not to have a funeral. Sometimes this wish stems from a desire not to be an inconvenience, or a sense of guilt or shame that one's life was not well-lived. Sometimes, simply the view that funerals don't matter, so why bother.
In every case, I think this desire is mistaken. The need to mourn the dead is an instinct older than our species itself, and in dismissing it we wound the people closest to us.
If you're the sort of person to whom the idea of skipping your own funeral sounds tempting, I kindly ask you for the sake of your loved ones that you reconsider.
The body does not need to be present for a memorial, as it is for a funeral. That makes it a somewhat easier event to arrange.
And honestly, standing at his gravesite paying my respects, I do not have the painful memories that I had with my mother's funeral, trying to organize, trying to handle everyone and everything, and not being able to grieve in the way that I wanted until long after. Instead, I am able to simply talk to him, and not have such a frustrating coda.
They say that funerals are for the living. Sure. But going to funerals of loved ones has never made me feel better in the long run compared to more private goodbyes, and I am not the only one to feel this way.
But I also recognize that other people got more out of it than did I. They cried and hugged and shared memories. That experience I am assuming was very valuable to them. But not to me. I was stressed the entire time. The lesson I learned was that funerals are valuable to some while not others.
For one particular funeral, it was for a childhood friend who I had lost touch with. One of the photos, in the rotation, was from a bus trip where I said, "hey, give me your camera." It was touching. His brother showed up at my mother's funeral a few years later.
(In the first few months, if not at the hospital)
I have noticed my love and respect for my friends who never visited after our newborn declined significantly, and it has never been the same. Does anyone have a similar experience?
Then I'd assume that if 1 person had a really good reason not to be physically around for the first few months, you wouldn't think less of them if they make it up afterwards.
The funeral (burial/internment) is usually for close family only. I will go, if it is appropriate, but usually, not. Sometimes, the funeral mass is more open than the actual burial.
I had a friend propose that we hire a woman and a child to stand a hundred yards away from the burial of a [male] friend, and leave before anyone can approach them, to add some mystery to the event.
A memory ill never forget though is the time I went to a funeral for a childhood friends sister - it was extremely sad as you would expect, but her brother (my childhood friend) saw a big group of us there and he said "I cant believe it, everyone came out" and I could see he was really happy.
When the article said "do it for the family" it really hit me, and in hindsight its obvious - we were there for them, not the deceased, and it meant A LOT to them to see us there.
In my culture (Berber), each time any of your relatives gets sick, you also must visit him/her and bring something with you for him/her (usually nice food/fruits and/or money).
The advice I've heard is, go to a wake to support those who are grieving, go to a funeral to grieve yourself.
(For this reason, the wake is held at more "convenient" hours.)
Do others make this distinction? Is the practice of holding a separate wake a regional/cultural thing?
There is also a reception at a restaurant immediately after the funeral; this is almost strictly for close friends and family though.
This hinges on your level of self-importance.
The large amount of time between the two events was better for the family, who didn't feel the same sting of fresh grief. There was no awkwardness, either. Everyone could remember the deceased in a way that she would have appreciated - old memories, laughter, and positivity.
My grandmother was the only relative of that generation that lived in the same city when I was young — the only funeral I went to.
But as an adult, having my mother recently die, it was my turn to more or less head up the funeral. I too was touched by, in this case, relatives of my wife that showed up. They didn't know my mom from Adam but came anyway.
The movie Charade is sort of about the bad effects of a poorly attended funeral. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8FA5zBHiFA
May be an Irish specific thing but I probably had been to 16 by the time I was five or six.
In my country (the Philippines), it's not uncommon for people to bring their children with them to funerals. I've been to the wakes of almost every elderly family member. It was also a good opportunity, however morbid the circumstances, to connect with the rest of the extended family, even those people who I didn't realize---until then---were my relatives after all.
What comes to mind? Do you wish you had said/done something? Take action before it’s too late.
Come to think of it, so would The Heart of Fools.
The thesis is this paragraph and I think it's quite striking and important
> "Always go to the funeral" means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don't feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don't really have to and I definitely don't want to. I'm talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex's uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.
Is it just me or does this actually seem kind of low?
They say your social cluster is 150 people, so you should be going to about 2 funerals every year (this ignores age-clustering, but that's counterbalanced by the fact that you often go to funerals slightly outside your cluster and the fact that the cluster changes over time).
Yes, it's low.
I go to much fewer than 2 funerals per year. But now that I'm 55 it will likely start picking up.
> Is it just me or does this actually seem kind of low?
Not for someone who's young and mostly disconnected from their grandparents' generation. In my case, my family lived far away from pretty much all my relatives, which meant I'm not very close to any of them and going to a funeral meant lots of short-notice plane tickets.
I think I've only gone to two funerals in my life: one grandparent who died geographically close to use when I was a kid, and the father (who I never met) of a friend of mine.
I think it would have been better if it had been different, and I had gone to more funerals, because now my lack of exposure adds a whole extra layer of awkwardness onto dealing with death.
The scenario I was thinking of to get to more than "five or six" funerals by age 16, was to have "always go to the funeral" parents who took you to the funerals of grandparents and great aunts/uncles living nearby.
> They say your social cluster is 150 people
Maybe yours is.
It's an interesting shift. A loss, I think.
When my grandfather died when I was 15, not only wasn't I allowed to go, but I had to stay home and watch my siblings as my parents traveled a thousand miles away for a week. We more than had the money for plane tickets. They just didn't want to bring us (youngest was 10, and also not troublesome).
For my other older relatives, they've all insisted on not having services, and I can't help but feel it's both an effect and a cause of the fact that my extended family is very disconnected and fragmentary.
My parents are / were just very distant from their families, didn't make much effort to tie their children into their adult social networks, etc.
I went to the only funeral I was ever invited to lol.
America's average lifespan is 77. When you're 16, your parents are perhaps 46, and their parents are maybe 76.
And a lot of people live for 10+ years after retirement, so your teachers might all be alive too.
If you've got a big extended family, or you're part of an organisation like a church where 16 year olds come are getting to know 70+ year olds, you might have gone to more than 6 funerals.
But generally? At 16 your parents, their friends, your aunts and uncles, your 16 year old friends, their parents? Good chance they're all still alive. Your grandparents - maybe, maybe not.
"Should" seems right, but in practice, do young people have this? How? (Thinking of the US here.)
When I was a kid, this came through church. But church attendance among the young has fallen off a cliff, with (to my knowledge) no replacement.
Even now, there aren’t anywhere near 150 people whose funeral I’d attend.
Nowadays many families have just one or two kids and everyone is spread over all of country and world.
For me, funerals and similar services are more for family and close (or at least close-ish) friends. My social cluster might number 150, but there are many in it for whom I'll pass on my regards & regrets from afar rather than attending a funeral or wake.
Are you attending 2 funerals every year, even averaged over a couple of decades to allow for clustering? I can think of one year when there were three, but that nowhere near makes up for the years when there were none or just one.
In fact, the actual number includes a significant decrease due to excluding "funerals I would've gone to if I didn't have a more important funeral to go to" and "people who moved away before they died". Thankfully in recent years remote recording is usually a thing in some form (live or not, video or just audio; the quality depends significantly on the funeral home).
The thing that made me sad about this article is that it made me realize how lacking I am in community. My eldest child is six, and I can't think of more than a couple people who are likely to pass from natural causes by the time she is sixteen, who we are close enough with to definitely know about their funeral. And I have no idea how we would find out about the funerals of people we aren't so close to. It's not like there is a local paper with obituaries that we read...
Of course the elephant in the room is that when I was a kid, the coordinating organization for this was my family's church. Without having that community fixture, I find myself unsure how this sort of thing actually works.
For us it was only normal to go to funerals for family members, and my parents' generation is getting up there but still alive. So only your four grandparents are what you'd usually expect by that age.
I never even heard about deaths in friends' families unless it was a reason they were missing school.
> Let the dead bury the dead
Always get on the plane. Make the trip. Weddings. Baptisms. Graduations. Funerals. All of it. Even if going home is hard.
And no, I don't want my last act on Earth to be inconveniencing people.
There’s no way around that. Death inconveniences the living. Your death will probably make a mess of some kind. Your dead body will have to be buried or cremated, or it will be an even bigger inconvenience. Your effects will have to be split up among the living in some way.
And if you find funerals to be an inconvenience, don’t go. But don’t kid yourself into thinking that everyone will be happier if you insist on no funeral. Many of us want to gather with everyone else who cared about the person who died, and it feels strange and wrong to be denied the opportunity. Funerals are for the living anyway. Let the living make their own decisions about what events they want to hold and attend.
But that could be minimized. For example, by not taking precious square meters of Earth surface from the living.
>> Your effects will have to be split up among the living in some way.
That's not inconvenience :)
I understand and even agree with the sentiment here, but to me “I don’t want to be buried” or “I don’t want a funeral” is micromanaging. I’ve expressed a preference for as little inconvenience to the people I love and as little damage to the Earth as possible. My children or whoever else survives me can make whatever decisions work for them. I don’t want my last act to be ordering them around. My dad, for example, had always planned to be buried, but when he was nearing death he suddenly said he wanted to be cremated, which was distressing to some of the family and was going to mean redoing a bunch of plans. When we asked him what was behind this sudden change of mind, it turned out he didn’t actually care one way or the other, he’d just recently found out cremation was less expensive and he was trying to save us money. Turns out it’s important to say what you really mean—“I love you and want to save you inconvenience and grief”—rather than “I don’t want a funeral” or “I don’t want to be buried” or whatever.
> That’s not inconvenience :)
Heh. You must not have been executor of anyone’s estate. It’s pretty inconvenient. All I can hope for is to have enough money that it’ll be worth it to whichever kid ends up doing it.
It frequently is. In fact, it tends to be a more difficult form of grieving in my opinion because now they are forced to throw away things that were yours because they know nobody else wants them. Your bedding, your old spice cabinet, the magazines you never threw out. All of those are more for your heirs to deal with emotionally and physically.
In fact, I think you have it exactly backwards. The industry popped up in order to exploit a deep human need. It did not create that need.
It's not for you, and it's not for other people. It's just a thing. It's not an analogy about doing the right thing. It's just going to the funeral. That's what you should do, for lots of reasons. When you do it, you'll know why; maybe later, but you'll know.
What? You have enemies? Like the Joker and Batman or Lex Luthor and Superman?
Honestly, to me, that word describes a kind of relation that mainly exists in comic books and between nation states.
I don't actively search for their obits or anything, but if I learned about a funeral, I'd make the time to visit, stand quietly, and reflect.
Probably not the healthiest thing, but not my unhealthiest quality either. At the moment it is only theoretical. But I can think of 3 or 4 I'm now likely to google up and see what they're up to and assess who is closer to the pine box. :)
Do you have grudge against those people, such that put effort into trying to undermine or defeat them? I feel the word "enemy" has connotations of a kind of direct, sustained opposition that just seems like it'd be really unusual (and unhealthy) in real life.
I never attend funerals, and I rarely attend weddings. I skipped my father’s funeral. It simply doesn’t matter if you go or not.
Consider that funerals may have developed over millennia as a component of the grieving process. There is nothing necessarily religious about them.
Losing relationships for other reasons that shouldn't happen, like fights, feels bad.
It's like eating a cake. You eat and at some point there will be no more cake, and you can rest content. But if the cake falls to the floor while you are eating, it's sad.
My mum came and said: "your cousin died".
I felt nothing, I different. I had a great relationship with him.
Seeing my non-reaction, my mum said : "you can cry". So I thought: "oh, so I should cry now, that's the appropiate thing to do in these situations", then I started crying.
When my 99yo grandmother died, it felt natural, like it was the time for such things. She'd eaten all her cake.
When my 29yo sister died, it was completely different, even though her death was also natural and did not involve suffering (sudden cardiac death, because invariably someone will ask). Sure, she'd had some cake, but it seemed like most of it was ahead of her, and the cake didn't fall to the floor, it just sat there, uneaten and uneatable, which feels both sad and wrong.
At least if there had been a fight, there would be hope for reconciliation, or even if that weren't possible, we could still be glad to hear good news about each other's life. (Rarely does so much hatred endure forever that you can't ever be glad when good things happen to somebody.)
Death is worse.
The appropriate reaction is the wailing and gnashing of teeth, an enormous amount of discussion, imitating as closely as possible the dress and decor of previous death gatherings that you have references to, varnishing, buttressing, and putting makeup on the corpse so that it looks alive, then looking at it longingly. If you don't do this you're a psychopath.
As for me, I could always use more cake. I have high expectations!