How do you deal with funerals?

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I don't attend them if I can help it. The one time I did cry was at one of the few I was forced to go to. However, it was more at the thought that I was expecting to see how they'd look in the coffin but since we got there late I couldn't that upset me more than the actual person dying. I mean, I did love the person, but I am okay with accepting death, so I don't cry at funerals. What I don't get is those huge parties (repast) they have right after the funeral where people eat and talk about the person who died. I know it's to remember the good times spent with the person but eh, the sudden change in atmosphere from depressed to happy just feels so off for me

In my dad's side of the family, crying is seen as a sign of weakness, even at funerals when most people would see it as appropriate. As a result, if I have to cry, I get away from the rest of the family to do so. I managed to keep the emotion in until after my grandpa's casket was left at the grave. Even though my grandpa was a devout Catholic, we had to tell the funeral home to close the casket at the wake because the open casket would have really upset my grandma. The downside to having been taught to hide emotions is that there have been times when people accused me of lacking empathy because I managed not to show emotion.

Sometimes if the person was a distant relative that I didn't really see much, I just feel awkward, and in fact, I didn't go to my great uncle's funeral since I had only met him 3 times in my life, and the last time I saw him was at my grandpa's funeral as they were brothers. People understood the reason I didn't go, especially since I didn't want to see the verbally abusive uncle I had cut completely out of my life after his behavior at my grandpa's funeral. This uncle is bipolar, and refuses to get treatment for it. Since verbal abuse doesn't count as being a danger to others, there's no way to force him into being treated, as he's never threatened suicide or anything else like that.

3... And this compounds the pain I'm already feeling and makes it worse. But I always suck it up and go because my family needs me to be there for them, and the last thing I want to do is make them feel worse. When I get home, when it's over, then I can deal with it in my own way.

This. I can't focus on the funeral and things and if I happen to think of anything funny then it gets you some evil looking stares! :O

I understand compassion but unless the person was hit by a car or something I consider it normal, and I hope people laugh at my funeral instead of crying about nothing.

I can't recall much of the few I've been to as a kid(and I don't think I understood what they meant then, either). The only one I've been to recently was my grandfather's, last November. Didn't cry or feel sad, but I think that would largely have to do with the person rather than funerals themselves. I wouldn't say I had hate for him, but he seemed to just generally be a mean spirited person. Strict with his kids, dog, and disrespectful towards anyone else. Made jokes about my mothers weight, as if it hadn't been bad enough with her own father, who'd already succumbed to lung cancer decades ago. After he had his stroke, it was more of a strain on my grandmother.

I guess this isn't really the kind of place for that, though. Just been the only experience I've had with any funerals, really, to draw from.

I will brood for days after going to a funeral.

This.

I try to keep my head down and stay in the background. I'm never quite sure how to act at a funeral, so I just try to look sympathetic and offer my apologies.

Though I've always wondered why people say they're sorry for your loss when they really aren't.

I haven't been to any funerals as an adult. I went to a couple when I was a kid. One was when I was about eight or nine. The grandfather of my best friend at the time had died and for some reason I was invited to the funeral. Maybe my friend wanted me there for support? I was totally the wrong person. At the graveside, she turned to me for a hug, which I gave her, but I fear I was very awkward about it.

In general, I don't get upset about elderly people dying. It's what happens. I feel much sadder when young people die. But I only get distraught when animals die.

i hate going to funerals
most of my relatives are distant, aloof and they care a damn about me
so when they die it becomes senseless that i go and i dont know what to say or do
in life so also in death
the last funeral i attended was when my hubby's cousin sister became a widow
she has two daughters and is just in early 40's
the situation was awkward i didnt know what to say or do
i was just waiting to go home
also we have this crazy customs which makes it even more weird

I was picked to stand up and say one of those speeches (What do they call it. Eulogy?) at my father's funeral because i was the only one of the family who wasn't all choked up etc . I said something about my work and apparently everyone said it was very good what I'd said (? ?)

Generally I find them more awkward even than other social events where, if I say something "off", people might think it was a joke that they didn't get

I thought I'd post this, since it's about funerals. It's got nothing to do with AS but it's a story about when my husband and I went to my Aunt Rachel's funeral several years ago. There is no point to it, other than the fact that some people may find it entertaining, so read it if you like, if not I won't be offended.

In 01 my Aunt Rachel died. She was my grandfathers brothers wife, so that's my great Aunt. My mother couldn't make it to the funeral so I had to go. My husband took me. He's been in the South since 1984 and seen some crazy stuff that he's learned to take in stride but he had never been to a funeral in my family. He was unprepared. His family is quiet at funerals, respectful, polite, sad but there are no hysterics. Boy was he in for a shock.

My grandfathers side of the family is half Irish and half Cherokee, his Daddy my Grandypaw (who died in our front yard when I was 6 by falling down drunk and hitting his head on the concrete steps coming off the porch) had married a full blooded Cherokee woman. That wasn't a good combination. His entire clan were all drunks. I had failed to mention this to my husband. He had never met anyone in my family except my mother before this, for obvious reasons which you will soon see. The main reason is that his family just isn't like that and at first I didn't want to spoil things between us by showing them to him and later on I just wasn't sure he could take it.

The viewing was at Rideouts at Elmwood Cemetary, and there was to be a simple graveside service followed by dinner at my Aunt Judy's house, which used to be my Uncle Louie's (Aunt Rachel's husband) house. One of Judy's daughter's lived in Aunt Rachel's house (they weren't divorced they just had seperate houses and always had - see, it's already crazy) and she said she didn't want everybody at her house. That's understandable, I wouldn't either.

We got to Rideout's and went in. It looked normal. At first. It took him just a minute to realize that almost everybody was already drunk. His family drinks too, but they don't bring plastic cups of drinks or cans of beer inside the funeral home. Mine does. My Aunt Judy runs over crying with all her Tammy Faye makeup running down her face, her huge red coiffed Dolly Pardon hairdo every which way, in her miniskirt (did I mention that she was 63 then?). She hugs me and then it's the first time she's met DH. She immediately stops crying and sizes him up and made a few rather off color comments about him to me, which embarrassed him, then she hugged him and got makeup all over his suit.

He had to be introduced to the whole bunch and he was surprised to see a guy standing there with two guards with him, and then he found out that was my Uncle Tommy, Aunt Rachels younger brother who is doing life and they brought him from prison to the funeral. Tommy and the guards and 10yo Roman, my Aunt Rachels great grandson who she used to watch during the day until two weeks before she died, were the only sober ones there. And us. Aunt Judy remidied that immediately. She ran out to the car and came back in with two plastic cups which must have been half whiskey and half coke with no ice. It was warm but we drank it anyway. My husband was sipping on his and I told him "Just get as drunk as possible, as fast as possible, it's the only way to get through this, and Uncle Louie's house isn't but a couple miles away and it's all back roads."

So we all stood around talking, catching up, drinking, going to cars for refills. We went over and saw Aunt Rachel. Talked about how good she looked. (????????) I showed her some pictures of my kids and put them in there with her, and a letter to her from my mother explaining why she wasn't able to come, and gave her my mother's regards. My Aunt Judy's boyfriend and father of her children took some of the guys out to his truck and they smoked a joint. Then it was time to go to the funeral. The undertaker said everybody but family out, and the three or four people who weren't family left and there was the whole bunch of us there and he asked if we wanted a final goodbye before he closed the casket. Of course we did! It was showtime!! ! We were all half drunk and we wanted to get maudlin. We wanted to wallow in it. There had been some sadness, because it was such a shame that she died, but now it was time to show it. This is where DH started getting really disturbed.

In my family, and in many families down here, there is a tradition of lining up and filing by the casket and saying a few words to the dead person, patting them and then leaning over and kissing them on the cheek or forehead which my husband had never seen or imagined. Now, in most places, a mother, or spouse or a son or daughter or the deceased may do that sometimes, but in my family it's done by everybody. It's like a receiving line (which btw we don't have at funerals and I was shocked at his dads funeral because there was one and I had to be part of it), There was about 30 of us there and because we don't just do a quick look, a whispered "goodbye" and a peck on the forehead, it lasted over 45 minutes. Some people use this time to pour their hearts out, or make a confession, or just get an old girevance off their chest. My husband was not expected to participate, much to his relief. So, finally it got down to the last person, my Aunt Judy who was pretty well wasted by then. She had to go through her entire life there with her mother, talking about everything, confessing things, bitching about things, apologizing for things, with many declarations of love for her mother. Then she leaned over and when she kissed her she just had to put her head on her and cry for a few minutes. I was kind of worried that she might cry herself to sleep because she looked pretty comfortable but she rallied and got up and they closed it and several people cried loudly and sat down and Aunt Judy fell down on the floor. My husband went to help her up but I told him "No, she does this, let her have her time".

Now, because my Aunt Judy was more of a drunk than is acceptable in my family, and because she had kept Aunt Rachel and Uncle Louie and my own grandparents as well, in a state of frenzied concern for most of her youth and middle age by her antics, she wasn't too popular with most of the family. Her kids, Rhonda and Tracy, didn't have much to do with her and even Tracy who was living with her for the time being, tried to avoid her as much as possible. Her and Bo had broke up a long time ago, but he was there because he was family and even he didn't want anything to do with her. I didn't have a problem with her, and my husband was new and also she seemed to like him a lot right off the bat because he's good looking and friendly and drank with her, so she attached herself to us.

They took the casket out to the hearse and we all went out to follow them through the cemetary to the gravesite. Aunt Judy looked at DH (BTW DH is internet shorthand for dear hubby - it's generic) and said "I'll ride with you, I'm too upset (read drunk) to drive". He said ok and we went to the van because we were going to be the lead car. As we were getting ready to pull out, she remembered something. She said "Wait a minute, I almost forgot!" and she got out, hollered "WAIT WAIT I GOTTA GET SOMETHING" to the hearse driver even though he was just the next car ahead and his window was down and she could have just said it in a normal tone, and took off running to her car. A minute later she was running back with the bottle of Evan Williams and a 2 litre coke. Once she was settled back in the van and freshened up her own drink and ours, we took off.

Johns-Rideout's Mortuary is one of Alabama's oldest funeral homes and this one was the first. It's located at Elmwood cemetary which is pretty big and pretty old. Bear Bryant is buried there, and we stopped on the way out after the funeral for DH to look at his grave. We drove and drove. We went through the old sections first because they were the closest. They have a Catholic area where the ground has been blessed by a priest, they have sections that are reserved for certain families, they have the section where black people were buried before the Civil Rights movement which was called the "colored section", and they even have a Gypsy section, but being in Alabama most of it is Protestant. The old section up by the funeral parlor is beautiful. It's full of huge old oak and willow trees and gorgeous family mausoleums and big tombstones. As you get farther out there are less trees and it's newer because they buy up the land around it and expand. It's about a 12 - 14 square block area now I guess. They have the baby section, called "Babyland", which is sad, and the Bruno's section which is very ornate. My family has a place in a nice area there. There are trees, but not the huge ones. My Grandypaw bought about 25 plots back when he was young because it was "real estate" and he thought there might be money in it. There wasn't. Just permenant security I suppose.

We got to the grave and it was set up like they do with the canopy and the green carpet around the grave and the brass runners for the casket and the folding chairs set up with the front row covered in black crushed velvet that has the Rideout's logo printed on the back of each chair in gold. The funeral home's pall bearers brought her casket over and put it down. We always use the funeral home's pall bearers because we know that the males in the family will be half lit by then and there is a good chance of somebody falling down and getting hurt with the casket. Plus, almost everybody carried a glass or a beer so they had one hand full. Aunt Judy pulled us both up to the front row with her, which wasn't appropriate because I wasn't that close and my husband didn't know anybody there from Adam, but appropriateness has no place at an O'Harran funeral.

They passed out the little booklets with the service in them so we could follow along and Aunt Judy looked at hers and turned around to loudly whisper to her daughters and grandson to follow along and pantomimed it by waving the book and pointing at it. Everytime we turned a page she would turn around and do that. She was pretty loud with the responses too. The preacher finished and asked if anybody would like to add anything and Bo decided to. He came forward and talked for a while. Most of it didn't have anything to do with Aunt Rachel. He got somebody to hand him another beer during it, as he had brought one of those small coolers with him, and then he sang Amazing Grace a capella and I was surprised at how good a voice he had. Then he cried and talked to the casket and we all started crying.

There was a pile of dirt on a carpet on a folding table because we wait until the casket is in the ground and we throw dirt on it and say our last last goodbyes. The last goodbye where we kiss them is just a dress rehearsal. This is when the real show starts. Most people have read in books about people screaming and fainting and trying to throw themselves into the grave but have never seen it. I've seen it, we always do it and sometimes somebody accidentally does fall in but the point is only to try and be restrained. Luckily that day nobody actually made it in the ground but Aunt Rachel. We all went up and got a flower off the spray that was on the casket and patted and hugged the casket and cried loudly and yelled in there to Aunt Rachel. You are supposed to yell so she can hear you because the casket is pretty thick. Then they took the spray off and lowered her in. We got louder. I wasn't even close to her really and hadn't seen her since I was a teenager but I was joining right in. By this time Aunt Judy and Tracy and Rhonda were on their knees over the hole reaching down and just basically keening. Roman was trying to get away from Bo and his dad to get down there to his MeeMaw and having a fit and kicking, and people were throwing dirt in. DH was standing to the side with his hands clasped in front of him in a mild state of shock. Aunt Judy pulled me down to her and put her arm around me and said "Tell your Aunt Rachel goodbye honey" which triggered some genetic switch and I started yelling to her too, but I didn't try to get in there. Like I said, I wasn't that close. Then Aunt Judy hugged both her daughters, all three clinging together precariously at the edge of the grave sobbing and telling each other they were sorry. Everybody else was hugging and saying how it's been too long since we've seen each other and how family is just so, so important and this shows it. Then finally the undertakers broke it up and the preacher said a final prayer and the undertaker took Aunt Judy by the arm and said we had to go, because she was about to start up round two of the grief session.

So, we all went out to our cars to go to the house and eat. But, and there's always a "but" isn't there? We were almost at the van when Aunt Judy noticed the guys waiting with the backhoe and recognized one of them. He owed her money. Really. She took DH by the hand and said "Come on!" and off they went. He did nothing but stand there looking embarrassed as Aunt Judy got louder and louder and the guy paid her because I'm sure he was afraid the undertakers would come over and he would get in trouble for "causing a scene". We stopped by Bear Bryant's grave and then she made us to to the liqour store on the way to the house because she now had cash and wanted some booze of her own because she knew that what was at the house would get drank.

Nothing much happened after that. We went to the house and ate. She and the girls had cooked the day before and it was all in the oven on low so all that had to be done was set it out on the counters. Lots of food. Everybody brought something too. I had a pound cake in the van that I brought in, and we all sat around and drank and ate until way after dark. We lived a long way away and by this time both DH and I were pretty well wasted, so we slept there.

The next morning on the way home he told me he hopes that nobody in my family dies again any time soon because he doesn't think he could take that again for a long time.

As a contrast, I'd like to point out that at his dads funeral the only display of emotion were sniffs and women dabbing at our eyes with kleenex. The biggest display of grief was right as we walked away from the grave and DH and his brother hugged and each shed a couple of tears and BIL said "I can't believe he's gone!" and DH said "I know, I can't either!" and they wiped their eyes, sniffed, sucked it up and we went inside the adjoining reception house (a defunct one room school house) to eat. Everyone was pleasant and subdued after that. Then we drove to the courthouse in town to see the famous "Face In The Courthouse Window" - Google it if you have never heard of it. That is what he is used to.

That's a true story too.

I've been to so many, many of them, that it's just another ritual, and in most cases, there is a more upbeat social luncheon after the services, where the atmosphere is happy while people talk about the good times in the past with the person who passed away. I can personally handle funerals fine, but I can't handle it when others get emotional, and I have NO CLUE how to comfort them, and I've even been accused of being callous later, for not doing the right thing to comfort someone. The hardest one was the services for a young cousin of my wife's. He was a professional ice climber, and died in an accident on Mount Baldy, CA during a practice climb. Also hard, was when my boss' wife died. She was very young, and had 3 little boys. One of the boys got home from school, and found his Mom. The coroner found out that she had diabetes and didn't know it, and she fell into a coma and died after eating something with too much sugar. That was a Catholic funeral, which has many parts to it, and hers lasted for two days total.

Charles

I can never understand why distant relatives feel the need to go to funerals when they haven't seen the dead person for years. And if I'm that relative, why do people assume that I'll want to go to a funeral hundreds or even thousands of miles away?

I've never been to the funeral of someone I knew, so I have to just clamp down on any giggle fits that threaten to escape it's a terrible affliction

Have you ever seen the Mary Tyler Moore episode "Chuckles Bites The Dust"? It's very appropriate for this thread.


Part 1
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQoTEScSlyc[/youtube]


Part 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmLX4A0o414[/youtube]

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8EUykajYWo