Why do we go to Funerals?

Post Reply New Topic

For years I never undestood this custom or marriage. Today I got to go to my grandmother's funeral and yay I get to see her in an open casket which I can't skip because that would be seen as rude. This is so hard right now and I'd rather remember her as alive. Most customs differ but in the Western culture supposedly you're saying goodbye to that person and celebrating their life. I still don't get it and I what makes this harder is most members in her side of the family are very religious. I get to hear them telling me "She's with God sweety." while I'm crying knowing very well she's gone for good. Not all funerals require you to dress up but I have to in this case. Why?

I guess customs are a mystery to me. I too mourn but I don't do it by dressing up and listening to long eulogies and sermons about none sense. I apologize if anyone is religious but I always felt that religion should be a personal thing. I don't have to go but my family is not only pushing me but asking why as if I didn't care about her. I cared so much so that I don't want to remember her in a box just like my other grandmother who passed away and a friend about to get cremated. Maybe I could come up with an excuse that it will trigger me?

Maybe I'm being unempathetic but I don't get it and I know that as a grown woman I need to pretend to be an adult but I feel like I'm about to lose it with what little sleep I got from the constant phone calls offering condolences and funeral costs.

I think it is supposed to force you to realize the person is gone from this earth and help you by making it a social gathering.

Everybody processes grief differently, autstic people more so.

Q) Why do I go to Funerals?

A) It kills time.

The marking of the occasion of someone's death and burial has been something humans generally have felt a need to do since ancient times. Some of the earliest burial sites and graves show indications that some kind of respect and ritual was given to the dead by the living community who interred them.

It's pretty widely experienced as providing some kind of emotional closure to the people who loved the deceased. Obviously "your mileage may vary" because not everyone is the same and not everyone grieves the same way -- or even experiences much grief at all.

But basically it's for closure, and is so widely done because "most" people feel these rituals do provide some kind of acknowledge and respect for the life just ended and some kind of closure for those who are now without that person.

It's probably more easy to understand if you find that you lose someone that really triggers your sense of loss. I didn't really get a lot of this stuff until someone the closest of all died and I found myself shattered by that. It meant a lot to me to attend the rituals of the funeral even though I also discovered that yes, she was just a shell and not "there." But I still felt like going through a ritual that "marked" the passing proved important to me in my process of letting that person go.

It's not for the dead's benefit, more for the living, and it can be important for those who feel that it's important -- and if you don't, then it's not, obviously.

I really dislike going to funerals. I only go to them if it's absolutely necessary.

I really don't care for the idea of death at all.

I thought that was funny.

It's really out of tradition and respect. It's the last time you are with the person physically and I see it as a kind of send off to the next place. I'm all about tradition, but I've been to a few funerals where they play music that the person used to like and I really "enjoy" that. It makes it less sad and scary.


I actually always wanted to be a mortician - since I was about 12.

I've had to go to too many of those this year - I get through them by focusing on the living people who'll feel better for seeing me and others come to comfort them (even if it's just by stopping by.) At least none I've gone to this year involved an open casket - I remember being brought to some elderly relative's funeral when I was very young and being forced to kneel and pray next to the open casket, and open caskets weird me out to this day even though I'm too old to be forced to go near them.

I don't think it's about anyone "caring for the idea of death."

Trust me, nobody is enjoying it.

It's about tradition, respect, and also seeking closure. It's not a picnic, nobody's loving it, but it's an understandable need to seek out closure. Some needs aren't about pleasure but about trying to face your pain -- if pain is what you're feeling.

I didn't mean that people "enjoy" death LOL....not at all!

I understand why people go to funerals. I just don't like going to them. They depress me.

But when I have to go, I have to go. And I bite the bullet.

I certainly wouldn't go to my own.

going to my own funeral will be the last thing i do.

jokes aside, you go to funerals to help each other deal with the grief of losing a loved one, even if you didn't know the deceased person yourself.
I have gone to funerals of family members of my good friends; to show that friend that i was there for them if they needed me.

passing up on visiting the open casket is not rude, i didn't do that for my own gandmother (who i loved deerly); i wanted to keep the memory of her alive, and not muddy it with seeing her dead body, and this was seen as a perfectly valid reason.

I don't go to funerals.

I made arrangements to be incinerated and I don't want a grave/designated "resting place" etc or any kind of ceremony to go with it.

when my father dies, I will not go back to visit his grave. when I told them I shall never come back, I meant it. and he can keep the s**t he tried to control me with, like my so called inheritance. screw him, may he take it to his grave. if i did not earn it it is not mine, and i did not earn his own rejection of me, thats on his own head.

Funerals are to help us move on, to let go of the past, acceptance,. not all of us need that, and some will hate us for it because they cant and want us to acknowledge their own loss and pain too.

My father wanted a girl so bad, that he rejected his sons when they were born, esp when he got what he wanted, then he spoiled her. he wanted two children a boy then a girl, he had a son, and a girl last, all the boys in between he rejected as something he did not want.

Thank you guys from your input. I cared a great deal for my grandmother so we were very close. It was the same with two previous funerals I went to as well and I haven't gone to their graves since then. I honor them by looking at their pictures and going by memories. That's my idea of closure I guess.

I got back from the funeral and while I wasn't big on the religious aspects, I did appreciate listening to the story about her life that she wrote herself. It was like I was listening to her but other than that I was both upset and bored. I bawled at times and other times I was bored. As I went by her casket, I didn't see my grandmother just a corpse. I'll probably never see her grave. It is still all too foreign to me and my dad shared the same feelings. He even told me that he wants to be cremated and if his body is in good shape he's going to donate to the KU university. After that it will be cremated. He's not big on plaques but my sisters and family want him to have one. I was like my dad, I didn't care. Anyway I guess I could see the closure as some of it celebrated her life. I also got to see some of her family and congregation she was very close to. But apart from that, I just didn't feel anything except what I felt when I first heard the news when she had passed. It was the same way with my friend and other grandmother who I I was very close to.

Thanks guys.

I apologise if I being was insensitive, MissConstrue, I'm sorry about your grandmother. I don't have any biological family but I know what it's like to lose someone you love and I've never got any closure from the usual rituals surrounding death, they brought me no relief.

I think people can experience grief and loss in very different ways, and I know quite a few people who only go to funerals because it's expected of them (and it would cause gossip and even a scandal if they don't) and do their grieving privately, some in fairly unusual ways, that can even cause upset amongst more socially conservative/conventional people.

Embalming is not common in Northern Europe (most of Europe as far as I can tell) so I've never seen an open coffin ceremony.

I try to avoid going to funerals. I'd rather process grief privately than share it with others.

I realize that a lot of people take comfort in sharing the sadness with others, but that's not me. I'm really a very private person.