On funerals---

[Aspieistj]

How many of you don't absolutely dread funerals? What do you gain from attending a funeral?
I was an RN and it isn't the dead body that I mind. I hate crying and I cry terribly from the wake, to the church, to the graveside, and on to the horrible "We're sorry you're dead" party. I don't visit the graves of loved ones. There is a decaying body in the ground and not the person I once loved. I suppose for the religious, the church part is necessary, but I really don't think the dead body has to be hauled up to the alter. Just more stuff to make people cry, if they care at all. Also, funerals are very expensive. Better that the money should be donated to a worthy cause. If a loved one died and I was responsible for their funeral plans, I would feel obliged to do as they asked. I have written into my will that I don't want ANY funeral! My body is to go directly to the funeral director who has been instructed to deliver me to the medical school that has accepted me as a full body cadaver donor. (If, for some reason I had to be autopsied, the school wouldn't take me and then I want my body to go from the pathologist to the funeral home and then to the crematorium.) Someone would have to receive the ashes and then dump them in some attractive place, while being careful not to be caught if dumping ashes is illegal in that area. If the medical school does the job they have been instructed to "dispose" of the ashes with nothing returned to anybody. If anyone feels the need to pray for me, then go ahead. Both my kids are atheists (don't know how they chose this belief) but they won't be saying any prayers. I chose this no frills or emotion disposal because I have suffered through enough wakes, funerals, etc. I told my kids to spend the absolute minimal amount of money on me after my death (not even a notice in the paper) and I have given the same instructions to a local funeral director. I want every possible cent left after I die to go to my kids and I want them to go out and have a fabulous dinner and think nice thoughts about me. I am a firm believer in organ donation, but I am old and have very little that could help anyone. The medical school wants me intact. I was an RN and it pleases me to think medical students can get some use from my body.

 

[King_Oni]

I don't do funerals for a few reasons.

- The arguments I have with family and friends for showing no emotion bothers them. It seems that it's mandatory to cry... and if I felt that way, emotionally, I probably would... I just don't feel it.
- I absolutely despise this mopey mood... (and even more so when I feel it's forced upon me)
- I'm watch to jittery to mix in with the general crowd there

 

[IContainMultitudes]

I'm pretty much in agreement with the above. I don't do funerals unless it's a close family member or someone else close, and even then it's probably mainly to offer whatever emotional support I have to give to family members. I much prefer closed-casket funerals or ones where the body has been cremated beforehand, the whole practice of having the dead person there turned into this weird wax dummy thing seems rather bizarre to me, is that really the way that you want to remember the person? Thankfully, nobody has ever criticized me for not showing enough emotion at a funeral, I've cried when family members died but never at the funeral.

I guess I would tell my family to make my memorial service/funeral small and simple, no corpse, no weepiness, a little comforting mushy mysticism if you must but no overt religiosity (certainly no editorial comments about how God hates same-sex marriage in the funeral sermon like at my grandmother's funeral!). Donate whatever organs you can from my body, dispose of the rest this way (to me, there's something kind of pleasingly H.P. Lovecraft about being eaten up by mushrooms after death):

The Infinity Burial Project

Mushroom Death Suit ? The Infinity Burial Project

 

[Ereth]

I've only been to two funerals in person so far in my life (in person; some family members lived far away---I wrote poems for their funerals when my dad attended): my maternal grandmother's, and that of my "second mom." (She co-founded my therapeutic riding program and basically watched me grow up).

Obviously I don't like funerals, but I don't have any particular bad feelings about them. They're a part of life. When I die, I hope that people will think of what I achieved in life so that they do not dwell too much on my death. But they're allowed to be sad. I can't change how people might feel about that.

 

[Judge]

I've never been a fan of any kind of rituals. Rarely I'll attend a memorial service out of love or respect....but that's as far as it goes in this case.

 

[Ehmagerd]

Hmm. I don't know. My grandma died of cancer when I was 10. I went to the funeral along with my sister and 4 cousins.
Luckily in that case I was able to genuinely cry and feel sad, as my cousins did. I say luckily because there is no shortage of situations in which I felt awkward for expressing different emotions than other people (often none at all or a blank expression).. Mainly from age 4 onwards these situations existed and made me feel awkward. I just didn't/don't experience emotions as other people do.
The whole ordeal of her having cancer effected us in a huge way (she had a lot to offer us but obviously was not able to after dying...)I don't know whether attending the funeral was good or bad. Or if it matters. It was just sad.

Earlier this year I went to my dads life long friends funeral ( brain cancer ). I had known him for about a decade. I don't think anyone felt obligated to cry. I believe most people didn't. Some struggled not to during speeches and a few were teary eyed in the audience but that's about it. It was an anxious situation to be around so many people that I didn't know but over all I'm glad to have attended. There were many stories about his life and they were interesting, nice to hear. He had many adventures throughout his life and was genuinely a nice person with good morals - I guess in reality the same cannot be said about the vast majority of the population. If he hadn't been such an interesting person I guess it would have been boring.

Boring, just as the other funeral was, that I nearly forgot about. My grandpas sisters husband died maybe a few years after my grandma did.
He was a mean old man, telling off me and my cousins lol. His life consisted of "achievements" in law enforcement, something I have no respect for or ANY interest in. Explains why that was so boring.

If people desire their loved one to have a funeral then give the people what they want, I guess. Seems silly how much they can cost though.
My popper, whom it seems I've gathered at least some asperger traits from, doesn't want us to spend much money on him. Or a funeral at all? I can't remember. He's irreligious and seems to be aware of his mentality, more so then most of the other idiots of society do (not trying to be insulting, just realistic). He's so similar to me.. even if we're so different.. But the similarities are very apparent. We've never been close it's sad I guess but even when I was a kid he had no interest in knowing me. It's sad. He seems an emotionally damaged and ****ed up person and never raised my mum properly.

I don't have children (yet?too hopeful), and as for the rest of my family I really don't give a **** what they do if I die. No one cares about my so there couldn't be a large funeral anyway.

 

[Laughingowl1975]

I avoid funerals as much as humanly possible, I have been to two in the last 20 years and at both I felt bored and embarrassed. I nearly got hit around the ear-hole at one about 9 years ago (an elderly neighbor's funeral), his niece got up and was sobbing her way though some speech she had made, I turned to my mother and whispered "why doesn't she shut-up and stop being such a cry-baby", also I think the fact that everyone else was in formal black clothes and I was wearing a t-shirt with Doom 3 written across it didn't help.

 

[Spinning Compass]

I have mixed feelings about funerals. What I absolutely hate are visitations. It's not that I am squeamish about dead bodies, but--that is no longer the person there, it is just a shell. And I never know quite what to do around it. I'd much rather remember the person living, not all made up with a sewn on smile. I don't like a spectacle being made of death.

Sometimes I feel that I am at a disadvantage because I was raised to be polite and not make a fuss. But there have been a couple of funerals that I have been to where I wish I wasn't so polite. One was of an elderly neighbor who had almost no one visit him and his wife for the last 3 or 4 years of his life. Yet at his funeral his "relatives" were sobbing their eyes out. I wanted so badly to say something then, but I held back. The other was of a co-worker who passed away from a degenerative disease. Her "pastor" got up there and was proudly boasting about how he hounded this poor woman to accept Christ. Finally she told him, "Pastor, I have read the Bible and I have done everything you wanted me to do, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" Yes, he said that right at the funeral and felt real proud of himself. He did not know my friend as I did, what it took for her to reach that point to say that. Because Laura was like me, taught to be polite. Oh, how I wanted to say something then, but I knew that Laura would not like that either.

I have told all my friends that I DO NOT want an open casket visitation, that I DO NOT want any religious proselytizing at my funeral. (Of course now that I am Unitarian-Universalist, I don't have to worry about that much.) What I want are Rogers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber show tunes. I want the song "No Day But Today" from Rent. Preferably in a theater rather than a church.

 

[Grumpy Cat]

I want to have a BIG party with lots of funky music like "Let's Get This Party Started" and "Raise your glass" by Pink. And, of course, an open casket because I'll be all "dolled up" in my favorite clothes - MY JAMMIES!!! And I want to make sure I have on really thick slipper socks (cause i can't sleep with cold feet). That's right, I want the party to be a pajama party with lots of fattening food and alcohol too! My only problem is my Ma wants to be a party pooper by keeping me on a ventilator as long as possible. Darn!

 

[Turk]

Ive been to far to many funerals of late. I can see the judgment in people's eyes, when I chose not to display emotion. What I cant get my head around,is these same people, hand no time for the dead ,when they were alive. So who are they really there for, the dead or their conscience,

Cheers
Turk

 

[Ereth]

Sometimes I feel that I am at a disadvantage because I was raised to be polite and not make a fuss. But there have been a couple of funerals that I have been to where I wish I wasn't so polite. One was of an elderly neighbor who had almost no one visit him and his wife for the last 3 or 4 years of his life. Yet at his funeral his "relatives" were sobbing their eyes out. I wanted so badly to say something then, but I held back. The other was of a co-worker who passed away from a degenerative disease. Her "pastor" got up there and was proudly boasting about how he hounded this poor woman to accept Christ. Finally she told him, "Pastor, I have read the Bible and I have done everything you wanted me to do, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" Yes, he said that right at the funeral and felt real proud of himself. He did not know my friend as I did, what it took for her to reach that point to say that. Because Laura was like me, taught to be polite. Oh, how I wanted to say something then, but I knew that Laura would not like that either.

The relatives: hypocritical, perhaps, but there could've been complicated circumstances that you didn't know about (though if the neighbor were my relative I'd make the time).

Co-worker: I would've kicked that friggin' pastor in the groin. Ess, bench, sei a mensch! ("Eat, pray, don't act like a jerk.")

 

[Laughingowl1975]

I've just come back from my grandmothers funeral, it was short and there weren't many people there. It was a secular service even though she was a little religious, the only thing that ruined it was my cousins sniffing and sobbing behind me which drove me mad, my sister and I were stony-faced all through it. I didn't hang about for the reception afterwards with all my relatives crowding me in, instead I followed my sister to a nearby mall and did some shopping, and that is the sort of 'no-fuss' my grandmother would of approved of.

 

[abdoriginal]

Well funerals depend on the deceased/their family's beliefs. In my family, I'm not exactly sure how to describe their beliefs, but it was Christian based. Most of my family is deceased and all of them have had a funeral, but it was more of a celebration of life ceremony. You would share your experiences and times with the deceased, then just a party thing where the decor is pictures or video of the person, and you just eat food and be with others who knew them. You have a party, just not as grand as the one going on in heaven, where the person hopefully has gone on to, but you still celebrate their legacy, be it small or big, it is celebrated and there are more tears of joy than sorrow. And a few times I've found new friends or even better, new family members I was never told about. When I was at my first one, well, the first one that I can remember, I remember asking my dad, "Why are we celebrating that the person is dead?" and he said "We're celebrating their life, and that they are now in heaven. We're partying because we are happy for them."

 

[Salmongirl17]

I went to a funeral before I was diagnosed and so no one knew why I was 6 years old-- happy and skipping around at my great-grandmother's funeral. My parents to this day (I'm 13 now) don't let me go to them or weddings or important ceremonies because I'll embarrass myself and every other person there