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.