Why do we go to Funerals?

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We go to funerals because when our relatives die, all the qualities and characteristics that makes them what they are die with them. We come because we want to let the deceased ones know that we will not forget them, and cherish them for how good they really are. Usually, funerals are taken very seriously, and are not a happy or laughing matter.

I go to funerals when my relatives or someone I'm close to die.

You didn't say anything insensitive. In fact I relate well. Part of why I went was so I wouldn't upset part of my family who are extremely traditional as well as religious. However I guess to some degree I felt guilty in my own. The last goodbye was when I hugged her before leaving her after a random visit. I didn't see her at the hospital like I should have. I initially thought she'd get through it and then I could see her when she was better. I knew though she was in a fragile state but I guess I didn't expect her to pass away so soon after nurses saying she'd be back on her feet and ready to go home. My family was telling me she was in so much pain and passed out many times. Even my dad said it was no use because she was heavily medicated and could barely articulate or recognize anyone.

Anyway I had no idea embalming wasn't common in Northern Europe. As callous as this sounds, I feel like death here in the states is business as usual and an expensive one at that which is why I don't want my family or anyone to have to go through the expensive process of caskets, embalming, sermons (which would be very unlike me me) and plaques or stones. Just seems ridiculous to me when one can look to pictures and memories but I guess I process grief like anything else completely out of tune with society and traditions.

This is how I honored my grandparents, I knew they were going to die soon, so I took the time to ask them about them selves and their history, so I could share it with my children and their grand children, and in that way they shalt never be forgot.

That's kind of where I'm at in my life. I don't have kids but I'm an aunt and I'm still learning about them as I go on. There were times when both of my grandparents had the habit of repeating events and how they lived, used to annoy me but looking I'm glad they did or I would have forgotten. I was even greatful that instead of things we got for Christmas we instead got pictures pictures of our family and their families along with stories she wrote and made into books. I used to think why? What does it matter? I'm so glad that I didn't throw any of them away though. Now I look through them and feel I have a better understanding of her. She grew up poor and really had to work hard in a time where most women stayed at home or worked part time. In some ways I can relate more than ever with her but I was no where near as poor as she was and didn't experience events such as a war that took all her brothers. I can't even imagine the hardships especially after lising her mother at 16.

I used to be annoyed that I hardly had anything in common with her. She always said though that we were alike and now after going through her biography, I do see some of myself in her. We never shared religious beliefs or politics but as a person, we both grew up in hard conditions though mine was no where near as hard as hers. She loved animals, she loved to draw and she was deeply insecure about her appearances. Her school years remind so much of what I went through being both poor and unattractive as well as socially awkward. But my grandmother managed to work hard and compensated for a lot of that.

Anyway I'm rambling but as young kid you don't think about this stuff or at least I didn't until I got older. My niece who is extremely young is already interested about our family roots and particularly both her great grandparents. She never got to see much of my dad's mother because my middle sister was too angry like she was the bad guy for not being the kind of person she wanted her to be. I think if anything, my grandparents and some of my family have taught me empathy and tolerance. You don't to have always agree with one's point of view just to love them or see that they can be right in their ways just as I'm not always right in my own.

I like the newer tradition I am now seeing a lot, namely having a "memorial service" or "celebration of life" a few weeks after the remains are disposed of (whether by cremation or burial). Often a lot of photos, newspaper clippings or videos are assembled, and there may also be speakers who share memories. I don't belong to a religious tradition, but even those who do may benefit by having the "funeral," for family only, shortly after death and a more public memorial service at a later date.

This gives people the opportunity to "pay their respects" to the immediate family, and it may be more meaningful to the immediate family because they are not still in the first throes of grief.

Long story short - I don't do funerals. I want my last memory of that person while they were still living, not limp and laying in a long brown box.

I hate funerals. I hate dressing up, and because I have empathic tendencies, all the sadness in the air is physically overwhelming and I've had sensory overload from it. I know I'm supposed to be there to comfort people, but I prefer not to have an audience when I cry and I so hate it when I see so many people crying and I know I can't help. After the funeral, though, I will be there to hug people if needed and when I learn to cook I will contribute food as well. My grandfather died a year ago, and my grandmother had an Irish reception after the formal funerals (he had three: Knights of Columbus, U.S. Army, and Rotary Club). If you know anything about the Irish, you'll know why the reception was a LOT more bearable. I would never want to remember my grandfather as a dead body. I'm not in denial that he died, but I'd rather remember that he lived. That should be his legacy.
I see the traditional burial process as wasteful and unnecessary anyway. When I die I want a tree burial (where your cremains are used to fertilize a sapling in a biodegradable urn), but whatever my family wants to do when I'm gone is what will happen because it's not like I'd be able to do anything except maybe slam doors in the middle of the night as a ghost.
People call me insensitive for not attending funerals. I guess I am, because I'm looking after my own mental health at the expense of others.

I might possibly have a fever so my apologies if I sound like even more of an insensitive jerk than usual. I shouldn't even be on social media right now.

To pay respect to a dearly missed person's fresh exeunt from existence with other people whose lives the departed touched, it is a ceremony where you have the chance to grieve and celebrate with the still living under a common cloud of emotion and reality, it's not like visiting a tombstone or something which is a starkly contrasting proposition with several barriers between the corpse and the ground so to speak.

So we can mourn the dead properly as part of a holy service, before they pass from this world, and be part of a service that remembers or honours them.

I'm not sure why someone said "embalming is not common in Northern Europe" or Europe as a whole -- Rubbish. My British parents were both embalmed as a matter of routine. "Europe" and even a specific part of Europe is still a HUGE place encompassing COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NATIONS AND CULTURES, and customs may vary widely. You can't speak for the whole of a region. The UK does embalming.

I do wish that even Europeans themselves would stop glomming us all together as if we all do exactly the same things. We don't.

I don't know how to handle that type of social gathering. There is nothing you can say or do that's going to make the situation any better. We are just a collection of matter, energy, and mostly empty space for a limited time before the bonds that make us dissolve. The only thing that matters is the time spent making an impact on the universe, so it knows itself and the memories created for others to cherish. I guess that's what it's about in the end, remembering.

When my grandma died I went and looked in the casket, yep that's a body. It did not smell like her too much perfume and I could smell the rotting flesh. Didn't feel sad didn't feel anything, not much of a point. Don't like funerals, seem like a waste of time. Also don't like churches so the two kinda relate. Everyone is always judging looking, am I behaving correctly? What is the correct way to behave? Mimic what others are doing? So many questions, screw it maybe I'll just be weird.

I'm alot like you TwilightPrincess, I'd rather not show signs of grieving.. but its a necessary part of life whether we like it or not. My nan was embalmed before being made to lay in the chapel of rest. My other nan won't be I presume.. its all part of which service you are attending.
What some western cultures find hard to percieve is that the 'embalming process' is like the Ruby Wax process, whereby the once human corpses melt down more easily when in split cohesion with one service, like Madame Taussauds last entrance fee, as opposed to being crucified or being burnt at the stake, before giving an everlasting sermon of peace to conduct before the afterlife.
Anyone who says they've sold their body under marriage guidance is lying, you have to own up your sins to God if you're going to pass through those golden gates unbidden.

I never understood customs but I used to do along for my parents and relatives.

I lost my grandfather to cancer. His was the first funneral I attended. It was a cultural shock but there were no emotions. I didn't cry. I forced myself to cry, but couldn't.

A few years back, my best friend died. I went into a cocoon for around a week but I didn't cry. I forced myself to cry but couldn't.

I have never been sad in my life when two of my closest people died but I could never figure out why I couldn't cry!

Does it happen to anyone else?

I understand funerals, most of us have a need in us to remember and honor what's gone, where I differ from the norm is that I don't like the idea of mourning together. To me, mourning is personal. From time to time I go to a graveyard in the woods and mourn those I've lost, even though they aren't all buried on that exact graveyard. I just have that need, I need to sit there on that bench and remember, and feel the pain, and the bittersweet knowledge that they are no longer suffering. But if other people joined me... I wouldn't be able to focus, I guess. I dunno.