Funerals And Other Unpleasantries.
I don’t like funerals. I suppose nobody does but I dislike funerals with a passion. I don’t attend funerals unless it is absolutely close family. And even then I don’t go to the function afterwards either.
I cannot bear to listen to people saying nice things they don’t mean about somebody they had despised all their lives; telling everybody how sorry they are that so and so is gone. People hanging onto each other crying; people who had not bothered to visit the departed for years. People you only see at weddings and funerals.
In my entire life I have attended to seven funerals; two grandfathers, an uncle, two brothers, my mother and my grandmother. In that sequence and the last 5 all in 2000.
My grandfather died when I was 8. I cried; not because my grandfather died but because my father cried. That was the only death in the family while I was a child. The funeral – and the get together afterwards – was enough to put me off funerals for life.
For all the other funerals I made sure I was out of town or unable to get away from work.
It is not that I am insensitive or not caring. I give flowers while the person is still alive. When he is dead there is nothing more I can do for him. I am not going to stand there saying things I don’t mean just because he is no longer with us.
Have a glorious day.
Comments (38)
Lol, you pretty much described my family. We only see each other on such occasions. I would not recognize my cousin if she walked past me.
I also only attended my dad's funeral and granny. I now have the excuse that I moved far away and the roads this side are very bad to travel. I also hate funerals.
You won't know how it irritates me to listen to a fella telling everybody how much he loved and respected the deceased and how much he will be missed.
If that was so why did he not visit him once during the previous 10 years. Did he not miss him then as well?
I think they just say these things to make themselves feel less guilty
People forget very quickly. Unless if you had done something to be remembered by, you are soon forgotten.
That is the strangeness of life. It always leads to death. Every body has to die - thankfully only once - and yet we can never get used to the permanent nature of it.
so I will to smile...
I'm alive and you too...
and I love you all for it!
At last you are back the way I remembered you.
At the funeral or the after-party?
Burials are always sad and I don't understand the lavishness of the after party. When half are crying in sadness and half are laughing with joy. Some are fasting and others are stuffing the food and the drinks. And sometimes even the gatecrashers cry along.
The only funerals I attended were for my great aunt and uncle and brother...plenty of people showed up for the party ater...it was a party not to be sad but to remember...warts and all...I had a great time...if you can imagine that!!...fortunately the service did not go on and on...no one had to speak for the dead...we just had a party for them!!
Yes that is the worst thing in life , saying good thing about people that are gone , and not been ever bother to say hi when they were alive.
Fantastic
Yes, I think I know what you mean and sometimes silence speak loudest.
My mother always asked for no flowers on her grave. "Give me the flowers while I'm alive," she asked and it was a wish we respected.
Some people thought they knew better and sent plowers even though we request that no flowers be sent and they were promptly move to an adjacent grave to be taken to 3 other fresh graves in the same cemetery.
We often go to clean her - and the other - graves but to this day, no flowers. We gave her flowers while she was alive.
I don't like going and I don't feel the need tbh, but I know the customs here are different (neighbours digging the grave, my ex was regularly busy with funerals for 3 days in a row and don't forget all the whisky which has to be drunk) and it does offer people here some condolences.
The last thing I personally would want is to have 500 people trouping through the place when someone died, but that's just me.
I suppose there are reasons to have an after party to get people into a better frame of mind but I think it is hard for the widow/er, parents, childern, siblings, etc of the deceased. I saw it with my mom. Just when she was slightly composed again somebody would come and tumble her right back into her depression.
That is why we should spend time with those we love while we still with us. They cannot hear what we say at their funerals.
Here we (the Europeans) also have relatively small funerals. Unless if it was a patriarch in the family. Like if I should die, other than direct family, I would not expect more than a few cousins and a few friends, but if my father should die, the entire extended family will attend. He is the undisputed 'godfather' in our family.
On the other hand, our black population have a long wake, HUGE funerals with an ox slaughtered afterwards. Everybody is welcome and even strangers attend.
So raise your horns to those who died
Let's drink to fallen friends tonight
Let's celebrate their glory life
We'll meet again in Valhall when we die
Not my words.
Let's call it the happy hunting grounds. Valhalla sounds too much like the place I wanted to go when I was 18, but ended I up in Bloemfontein at the end.
Oh dear, it is not just the Irish. It is here too; and I'm sure at a lot of other places.
Yes, it should be a celebration; in most cases the departed is better off.
It annoys the hell out of me the way a widow or a mother can just be set crying again by sympathizers just when she is composed again. At times silence is better.
And he who loves more than one wife has more than one mother-in-law.
I actually hate funerals and only go if I don't have a choice... close relative or friend. Luckily I have been blessed haven't had to attend on in years.
Depressing subject But Hope you had a great day!
Yes, but something I feel very strong about and I speak my mind about what troubles me.
Yes we do know that.
I should learn to keep quiet sometime too.
Must run. I was just about to log out when I saw there was another comment.
Good night.
I agree. Nobody likes funerals and we do it out of respect, but why do some people only develop respect for a person after his death.